‘Plogging’ can be defined as jogging combined with picking up litter. Started as an organised activity in Sweden around 2016, the phenomenon of plogging is going global as both environment and fitness fanatics benefit from the new trend. It spread to other parts of the world in 2018 following increased concern about plastic pollution. The activity provides variation in body movements with bending and stretching added to the main action of jogging.
Erick Ahlstrom started it in the town of Are in 2016. Mexico City achieved a world record with four thousand people plogging in a day. As per Ahlstrom, about ten thousand people are doing it regularly in India.
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In Swedish, ‘plocka’ is pick and then jog. So ‘Plogging ‘ is two words put together—pick and jog.
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Author David Sedaris also combined litter picking with exercise in the Parham, West Sussex taking up to 60,000 stops a day in pursuit of local rabbish. His neighbourhood became so clean that the local authority named a waste vehicle in his honour. Erik Ahlstrom started plogging by creating the website ‘Plogga’ to organise the activity and encourage volunteers.