By Mia Barnes, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Body+Mind Magazine.
You know exercising and volunteering benefit your physical and mental health. However, where can you find time for both, between work and family obligations? Perhaps the Swedish eco-friendly fitness trend of plogging is your perfect fit.
What is plogging, and why is this trend exactly what people and the planet need right now? Discover how you can do a good deed for your body and mind by adopting this fun new hobby and helping it grow in popularity where you live.
What Is Plogging, Exactly?
Plogging combines jogging with picking up litter. It’s similar to pliking, which entails cleaning up the environment while hiking or biking. It gets your body moving in the great outdoors while beautifying your natural surroundings.
By Funk Dooby from Kent, UK – FUNK9730, CC BY-SA 2.0
The Health Benefits of Plogging
You can reap many health benefits by plogging. Consider the following perks:
- Reduce cardiovascular disease risk: The American Heart Association recommends doing at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise weekly to reduce heart disease risk. Jogging provides cardiovascular exercise while stopping to pick up trash provides breaks to prevent excessive fatigue by creating gentle intervals.
- Boost your immune system: Exercising outdoors increases the number of phytoncides you inhale. Phytoncides are chemicals plants emit for defense that kick your body’s germ-fighting system into high gear when inhaled, increasing your number of immune cells for destroying bacteria and viruses.
- Produce natural vitamin D: Your body produces this vitamin when exposed to sufficient sunlight. It influences everything from your hormones to your immune system and helps maintain healthy bones.
- Helps you manage your weight: Being overweight or obese contributes to the risk of various diseases, such as COPD, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Getting moving burns calories and may reduce your appetite, helping you eat less without feeling deprived.
- Relieve mental and physical stress: Doing physical exercise outdoors can reduce your cortisol, a stress hormone that becomes dangerous in excess. Furthermore, climate change anxiety is real and impacts the mental health of countless people, but taking proactive steps to address it can lessen such fears.
- Provides a healthy alternative to addictive behaviors: One of the toughest parts about kicking a substance abuse habit is how to fill the hours you used to spend acquiring or using drugs or alcohol. Plogging offers a healthy alternative that provides positive social recognition and boosts your self-esteem, aiding your recovery.
The Environmental Perks of Plogging
Plogging immediately beautifies your surroundings by freeing them of litter. It can also benefit the environment overall and address climate change.
The problem is the anaerobic decay of litter, which can occur in unpredictable environments. However, research shows that litter removal results in a significant reduction in carbon emissions from the soil. Fresh air knows no borders, and plogging improves the quality.
Furthermore, litter can endanger area wildlife. The problem of animals eating plastic isn’t confined to the oceans. Pollution can drive some species to extinction, creating a ripple effect throughout the ecosystem. Everything has a role to play in nature, and disappearing creatures affect the food chain, including the pollination of crops humans rely on to survive.
Credit: R. Henrik Nilsson – Own work
How to Begin Your Plogging Adventure
Getting started with plogging is easy. It could even turn lucrative if you hustle a bit.
What Are the Best Spots for Plogging?
The best spot for plogging is wherever you feel most comfortable. For some, that might be a tranquil forest trail where few eyes witness you. More extroverted people might plog on city streets or crowded public parks, where they set an example for others.
Can You Make Money Plogging?
If your excuse for not exercising or volunteering is that you work too many hours to pay the bills, consider turning plogging into a side hustle. For example, offer to plog around a nearby shopping plaza, scooping up discarded drink cups after negotiating a fee for your services with the owner or facility tenants. One entrepreneurial fellow who got a similar start now makes $650,000 a year picking up garbage.
Supplies You’ll Need to Go Plogging
It helps to have the right supplies when you go plogging. Safety first — you’ll need minimal protection equipment. Of course, you’ll also need a way to carry the litter you collect to the correct bin. Gather the following:
- Plastic gloves: Some people prefer small surgical gloves they can remove and place in their pockets, while others carry longer dishwashing gloves for greater coverage.
- A grabber: While not an essential item, a grabber can help you reach litter tucked under thorny bushes.
- Trash bags: For the ultimate eco-friendliness, bring compostable versions designed to break down in the correct conditions.
- Sturdy running shoes: The right jogging shoes protect your feet and cushion your joints.
6 Ways to Make Plogging Even More Fun
Plogging is its own reward, but developing any good habit goes easier when you include an element of good, old-fashioned fun. Here’s what to do.
1. Bring a Friend
Plogging is a blast to do solo — your brain begins producing juicy endorphins from the exercise and other happy neurotransmitters like oxytocin when you stop to pick up litter.
However, 36% of adults in one survey described themselves as seriously lonely, which can have devastating effects on health. Bringing a friend goes beyond making plogging more fun — it also provides the following perks:
- Helps you stick to your exercise routine: Research suggests having an accountability buddy enables you to stick to a healthy fitness habit.
- Overcomes social anxiety: Social anxiety inhibits many people from doing the right thing out of fear of embarrassment. Having a friend with you provides a sense of safety in numbers that helps you overcome your initial trepidation.
2. Make It a Competition
Competition need not always involve other people. You can compete against yourself. For example, set a goal for how many pieces or pounds you want to collect on your plogging adventure and see how close you can get. Each time you go out, challenge yourself to pick up one more piece of litter.
Of course, you can also compete against a friend. Include a fun prize when heading out with a group — maybe the person who collects the most gets to select the coffee shop you go to afterward.
3. Seek Hidden Treasure
Picking up litter can sometimes be lucrative, even if you don’t charge a fee for your services. Consider the example of one dumpster diver who has collected over $2 million worth of discarded treasures over the years. Finds include:
- A $600 Dyson Airwrap
- A $500 robot vacuum cleaner
- A $400 set of Le Creuset cookware
Treasure appears in mysterious ways. For example, many people place unwanted yet serviceable items near garbage bins, which you can take when you deposit your litter. Furthermore, some materials are valuable as scrap. Discarded electronics and other items containing copper, brass or aluminum can score you a small paycheck at the local scrapyard.
4. Throw in a Few Biceps Curls
Jogging is fabulous for increasing cardiovascular endurance and working your legs. However, a regular run doesn’t involve much upper body work.
Plogging, however, incorporates your triceps, biceps, shoulders and back as you pick up litter and take it to the disposal site. Furthermore, it moves your body through various planes of motion, increasing your flexibility, improving your balance and decreasing your chances of injury. You can even add upper body resistance exercises with the bag, like lateral raises.
5. Add an Element of Parkour
What is parkour? It’s the art of getting where you want to go in a straight line — no matter what obstacles stand in your way. You might climb or leap over short walls, scale a taller fence or ford a stream by hopping across stones.
It’s considerably more challenging to clear such obstacles with a bag in hand, so embrace the challenge. However, be sure to avoid obstacles that could tear your container and scatter the litter anew. Use your cleanup efforts to create new hurdles. For example, can you reach that plastic bag with your grabber, or will you have to climb the tree a little first?
6. Create a Community Event
Plogging can become a fun community event. It’s an alternative way to make cleanup more fun after the fair comes through or the city hosts a free concert in the park. Talk with the coordinators of such events and gather volunteers. Your community plogging gathering can serve as a healthy after-party while providing a valuable service.
How to Start a Plogging Group Near You
You aren’t alone if this is the first time you’ve heard of plogging. Now that you know about it and the many benefits, consider spreading the word by starting a group near you.
How? It takes time, but once more folks recognize the perks, participation will grow — be patient. The first step is spreading the word. You can advertise your group and raise interest via:
- Community Facebook pages
- Local-specific websites like Meetup and Nextdoor
- Low-tech announcements, such as signs on community bulletin boards — include your contact information
- Coordinating with your local parks and recreation department
Even if you’re the only one at your first plogging event, keep up the outreach efforts. Working with an established community group like your parks and recreation department helps you reach a wider audience. You can also share information about plogging on your social media pages, raising interest among your circle.
Plogging: The Swedish Eco-Friendly Fitness Trend the Planet Needs
Plogging is the perfect pastime to address multiple problems plaguing modern humans. It combines volunteering with physical activity, helping you get your exercise while contributing to your community. It also beautifies the environment and addresses climate change.
Use this guide to begin your plogging journey and spread awareness. The more people who get into this trend, the healthier the planet and the people who live on it will be.
About the Author
Mia Barnes has been a freelance writer for over 4 years with expertise in healthy living and sustainability. Mia is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the online publication, Body+Mind Magazine.