Plogging is a portmanteau of jogging and the Swedish word for “pick up.”
I was scrolling through Instagram last week when an ad suggesting I go “plogging” caught my eye. I decided not to look it up on Urban Dictionary, but assumed it would be there, and wouldn’t be pleasant. The next day an email in my inbox asked me to sign a petition to make “plogging” an Olympic sport. As an Oregonian, I figured it must have something to do with logging, because if there’s one thing I learned at field day in lumber country, it’s that log rolls are a good way to work up a sweat. But it turns out that plogging doesn’t involve logs. It involves garbage: It’s a fitness craze imported from Sweden, and it just might be the sustainable sport of the future.
“Plogging, a verb, is the mashup of jogging and the Swedish ‘plocka upp’ or pick up,” explains Nathan Dopp, CEO of the North American branch of Swedish outdoor company Fjallraven, which has started hosting plogging events in the U.S. The term seems to have been started by a Swede named Erik Ahlström in 2016, who was looking for a catchy name for his favorite pasttime. The activity combines exercising in the great outdoors–hiking, jogging, or any sort of exercise will do–with picking up trash, like discarded bottles, plasticbags, leftover chip packets, or whatever other waste humans have left in their wake. It appeals to health enthusiasts who want to add some altruism to their workout. In other words, just bring a bag when you exercise outside, and pick up trash while you do it.
Read complete article originally published by FastCompany.
Opinion:
Plogging is a great way to get outdoors and help out the world. Picking up litter is so important because it gets smaller and smaller - ending up on the land, in the water, our air and food. Do your part today and we really appreciate your support.