CURRENT EVENTS Prepared by Sheena Esa

Plogging: A Fun Activity For Earth Day And Every Day

Looking for a fun Earth Day activity? You may want to try plogging, or picking up litter
while jogging. Odd as it may sound, the new "sport" is becoming extremely popular with
runners worldwide, many of whom are posting images of themselves and friends
holding bags of trash on social media.

Derived from the word jogging and "plocka upp," the Swedish phrase for pick up,
plogging is the brainchild of Erik Alström. In 2016, after moving to Stockholm from a
small ski community in northern Sweden, Alström became increasingly agitated at the
amount of trash on the road during his daily bike ride to work.

Since picking up litter while on his bike was hard to do, Alström began incorporating the
activity into his daily runs. "I was shocked by the amount of junk there was in nature,"
he said to unenvironment.org. "The same debris could remain in the road for several
weeks without anyone picking it up, so I started picking it up. It felt good in my heart to
clean up even a small place."

Other joggers soon joined Alström, and, by the end of 2016, the activity became so
popular that official "plogging" events, with groups of runners enrolling, began
sprouting up all across Sweden. As #plogging began trending on social media, the new
"sport" started to spread beyond Sweden, first to other European countries and then
worldwide.

SOURCE: https://www.dogonews.com/2019/4/12/plogging-a-fun-activity-for-earth-day-and-every-day