‘Plogging’ arrives in the States
Craze that began in Sweden combines fitness, litter control
Have you recently spotted people toting trash bags while jogging? Or their hands filled with old plastic bottles? You might soon.
Sweden’s latest fitness craze — plogging — is making its way to U.S. shores. The term is a mash-up of jogging and the Swedish “plocka upp,” meaning pick up. In this case, litter.
There are plogging groups in Scandinavia, Germany and beyond. In the United States, it’s starting to catch on among exercisers who are fed up with rubbish along their route.
“I’m not going to just let litter sit there. I’m not going to just walk past that plastic bottle,” said plogger and Alexandria, Va., resident Emily Wright. “It’s not that I don’t think it’s gross to pick it up. I do. But I also think it’s gross for a person to not take responsibility for it.”
Wright, 40, has been plogging for several months along the Alexandria waterfront, but just a few weeks ago learned that what she’s been doing has a name.
According to the Swedish-based fitness app Lifesum, a half-hour of jogging plus picking up trash will burn 288 calories for the average person, compared with the 235 burned by jogging alone. A brisk walk will expend about 120.
In Sweden, plogger Maja Tesch, 28, said she learned about plogging last year, when it became popular in the Scandinavian country.
Tesch, a nurse, said she regularly organizes plogging events in which she and friends will pluck litter for a few hours, then spend time hanging outside together around a fire.
“I run a lot and I love to spend time in nature. When I find litter out in the woods or in the archipelago it makes me sad and a bit angry. When I heard about plogging it was a natural way to do something about that agitation,” Tesch said in an email.