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‘Plogging’ Craze is a Beautiful Thing
What’s old is new again.
In the 1970s, kids routinely raced around the Cabrillo Racquet Club grounds in rural Saticoy after Saturday morning clinics enthusiastically picking up discarded aluminum cans and paper wrappers as if they were Easter eggs. Coach Wayne Bryan called it a “competition” which made us kids call it fun.
Meanwhile at Balboa Middle School, Coach Harold McFadden called picking up trash that blew over from the lunch area “doing the right thing.” As a result, the school janitor never had to clean up the basketball courts or playing fields.
Here is further evidence of why I believe great coaches must have a specific “anti-litter” gene: for as long as I’ve known him, Buena High’s legendary Joe Vaughan has picked up trash on his daily runs and the same could be said of John Wooden during his morning four-mile walks. Coach Wooden called it “picking up orange peels” although it applied to any litter he saw along his route.
Old is new, what fell out of style becomes trendy, and picking up trash while on the go is now so popular it has a hip name: “plogging.”
Despite often taking place on the run, “plogging” is not derived from the word “jogging.” Rather, the term was originally coined in Sweden and comes from “plocka upp” which translates to “pick up.”
Once a fringe activity called simply “trash running” outside of Scandinavia, plogging is gaining momentum as a worldwide fitness/environmental craze combining good-for-leg-strength squats with the feel-good Boy Scout virtue of leaving the campsite better than you found it.
As a result, sidewalks and roadways are becoming noticeably cleaner in countless cities, as are hiking trails and running paths.
Indeed, organized running clubs are even following Wayne Bryan’s method of turning plogging into a fun competition among themselves.
Furthermore, a growing army of runners are routinely carrying collection bags with them and making plogging a part of their workout. Many runners even set goals of how much litter they can collect; keep track of their PRs for trash picked up; and post photos on social media of their garbage bounties.
The Swedes may claim credit for launching plogging, but I think they are unjustly stealing our West Coast thunder. For the past 33 years we have held an annual California Coastal Cleanup Day to “plocka upp” trash from our beaches as well as lakes, rivers and creek beds. The effort is not only for beautification, but also preservation of the environment to prevent or minimize harm to wildlife.
California Coastal Cleanup Day has been no small success. To give you some measure, more than 60,000 volunteers turned out last Sept. 16 and their combined statewide efforts plocka upp-ed more than 2 million cigarette butts and 1 million plastic bottles; nearly 1 million each food wrappers and plastic bottle caps; half a million each plastic straws, glass bottles, and plastic grocery bags; and by reported count 381,669 metal bottle caps and 351,585 plastic lids.
That’s merely the top 10 different items of recyclable trash and debris cleaned up on one single day. Imagine the tonnages removed over the combined 33 annual California Coastal Cleanup Days, including all the remaining unlisted categories of litter.
Now imagine if we could individually expand the annual California Coastal Cleanup Day into a daily habit, and not just at the beaches but everywhere.
Old is new. The late McFadden and Wooden were daily ploggers, as are Coaches Bryan and Vaughan still. Let’s all emulate them in cleaning up our own little corners of the world.
Running or walking, let’s all plocka upp some orange peels today.
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.
Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …
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