There are many, many things we have to thank the Swedish people for. Their great genetics, Hygge and making mid-morning coffee and pastry breaks mandatory to name but a few; but now, plogging. (Yes, plogging! Doesn’t the word alone just bring you so much joy?) We challenge you to say it five times in quick succession without smiling.
The word (up there with ‘aplomb’ for favourite word ever) is a combination of ‘jogging’ and the Swedish phrase ‘plocka upp’ which means ‘pick up.’
A seamless marriage of exercise and environmentalism, plogging involves running and collecting rubbish at the same time. Basically an interval style workout (run, huff, puff, stop, collect rubbish, repeat), this new trend is as good for the environment as it is your daily step count.
We’re always on the look-out for new ways to become more environmentally conscious, and let the minutes show; if the Swedes plog, we plog too.
And let’s be real, keeping your eyes peeled for errant pieces of litter is a great distraction from — y’know, actual running. The intermittent stopping and bending down to pick up the offending article is basically a squat workout in itself. Kayla Itsines is proud of you, girl.
According to Greenpeace Australia, “Australians use between 13-14 billion drinks containers a year. While recycling makes a big difference, today, less than half of all these containers are collected for re-manufacture. This means around seven billion drink containers end up as waste in landfill, littering our beaches and streets, or in our oceans.” Which means there’s a helluva lotta rubbish out there that will put the ‘plocka upp’ into our jogging.
Movements like Take 3 For The Sea are encouraging people to leave the beach with at least three pieces of litter and have become much more widely known in recent years, however it’s easy to forget when you’re vacating the sand with fifty beach bags worth of stuff already. By making environmentalism the focus of a workout, and giving it a name (such a fun one at that), here’s hoping that plogging will make a real difference to our beautiful earth.
Mike Rosen, Senior VP at Keep America Beautiful — an organisation encouraging plogging in the U.S. says “Plogging is brilliant because it is simple and fun, while empowering everyone to help create cleaner, greener, and more beautiful communities. All you need is running gear and a bag for trash or recyclables, and you are not only improving your own health, but your local community too.”
On that note, we’re officially sold. Off for a plog we go!
(Final food for thought: if people were to start blogging about plogging, they’d become plogger bloggers. Did you ever!).
