A New Swedish Fitness Trend Combines Jogging and Picking Up Trash

Scandinavians have come up with a pretty awesome way to simultaneously whip the body and the planet into shape with an increasingly popular fitness trend referred to as plogging. A combination of the Swedish verbs for “to jog” and “to pick,” plogging is a cardio-boosting combo of jogging and picking up litter.

According to the BBC, plogging appears to have made its debut on Instagram back in October of 2016, but the influence of the energetic, environmentally friendly routine can be found throughout the world, with newly formed plogging groups appearing in countries like the UK, Thailand and France.

Core77 credits environmentalist Erik Ahlström for kicking off the movement in Stockholm. After moving to the capital city, Ahlström was taken aback the overwhelming amount of garbage on the streets. He decided to address the issue by organizing groups of joggers to incorporate trash pickup into their workout routines, thus giving birth to plogging. Ploggers wear gloves and carry large trash bags while jogging along their routes. Once the bags are full, they discard them in designated receptacles like the responsible, running citizens they are.

“It is all about doing something about our environment and health before it is too late,” a Sweden-based group called Plogga explained on its Facebook page. “We have found a solution to the problem that makes it no longer taboo to pick up trash and clean up.”

EcoWatch offers some rather sobering stats on plastic pollution alone. The site reports that plastic production during the last decade outnumbers the amount produced during the entire last century. Additionally, enough plastic is discarded each year to circle the Earth four times.

If it takes a fitness trend to convince the masses of the importance of keeping pollution to a minimum, then we can’t help but support the #plogging movement.

h/t Inhabitat