Meet Edgar McGregor, a 20 year old climate activist in LA who singlehandedly cleared almost 7,000 kilograms of rubbish from a popular hiking trail in Southern California and inspired thousands of people to turn their activism into hands-on action.
Edgar’s passion for weather patterns and climate change started when he was young and he was known at school for leaving the classroom on a regular basis to witness a passing storm. Observing the impact that humans were having on the environment, Edgar began striking out the front of California’s Pasadena city hall as a school student but unsatisfied that he was making enough of a difference, decided to take matters into his own hands.
In May 2019 Edgar began cleaning up Eaton Canyon, the closest of the Angeles National Forest parks to where he lives. For 589 days, he made a daily pilgrimage to the park, despite working 12-hour shifts at a warehouse, persisting through heatwaves, snowstorms, and bushfires. He documented the entire process in photos and videos on Twitter and gathered 17,000 followers along the way, many of whom were inspired to grab buckets and share their own clean-up expeditions under the hashtag #EarthCleanUp.
On the 5th of March 2021, Edgar declared Eaton Canyon clean but has committed to return regularly to make sure no new rubbish has appeared. Later this year he’s heading to San Jose State to study meteorology and climate science but until then he’ll continue his clean-up mission around other local parks. Outside Online
“Individual action and systematic climate action are two sides of the same coin. If you don’t have individual action, you won’t have systematic change. And at the same time, when we have systematic change, it makes individual action easier. It’s a positive feedback loop. We see it in nature, too.”
