When athlete Erik Ahlström moved from the small mountain town of Are in northern Sweden to Stockholm, something surprised him more than the pace of the city: the amount of trash accumulated in parks and trails. Accustomed to running in environments … Clean Naturals, he started collecting trash during his workout. And what started as a personal gesture has become a global movement. Ahlström named this practice plogging, joining the Swedish word plocka upp (to collect) with jogging (to run). The idea was as simple as it was powerful: take advantage of physical activity to clean up the environment.
Now, seven years later, the initiative has spread across Europe where it has gained followers thanks to networks and the involvement of local groups who organize meetings to clean parks, beaches and natural spaces. Its practice does not require significant resources, but it does require a certain preparation: comfortable clothing, running shoes, gloves and separate bags for sorting waste. Throughout the course, they combine running sequences with bending and stretching to pick up trash. In just five kilometers, several kilos of waste can be eliminated, transforming a sporting routine into an action with an environmental impact.
This is a complete workout, since in just half an hour you can burn around 300 calories compared to 235 during regular jogging. Before starting the activity, it is advisable to spend between 10 and 15 minutes stretching. For hygiene and safety reasons, it is advisable to always use gloves and bags, preferably reusable, which protect your hands and deposit all recovered waste for later classification or reuse.
In Spain, the movement has been strengthened thanks to initiatives like Plogging RRevolution, an association founded in Alicante in 2018 by David de Castro, a plogging enthusiast who came to participate in the first world championship organized in Japan in 2023, the Spogomi World Cup. A professional soldier, he emphasizes that with this discipline he combines two of his great passions, sport and the protection of the planet. “It is rated based on the time and quantity of waste collected, but also based on the type of waste. Sometimes you can even find sofas, windows or other large objects that, even if you waste time and subtract from the competition, you cannot continue to leave abandoned. Waste can be dropped off at refueling points and will then be selected to facilitate recycling,” explains De Castro.
Up to 3 tonnes of waste
He emphasizes, however, that it is not only a sport reserved for professionals and that Plogging RRevolution organizes activities adapted to the age and physical condition of each group of people. To this end, in addition to competitions, they promote hiking or waste collection days that combine other outdoor sports such as kayaking to collect waste in an aquatic environment. Different modalities and options brought together in their Plogging Fest, a two-day cleaning competition unique in Spain. David emphasizes that not only the collection and the competition are important, but also the awareness work. To do this, they collaborate with town halls, businesses and educational centers to promote sustainable habits beyond sporting events. “At the moment, and unfortunately, we never come back empty-handed. The day this happens, the planet will have finally won,” he says.
This discipline is already practiced in more than 110 countries and continues to grow. Massive meetings take place in cities like Paris, New York and Tokyo, and in Italy the World Plogging Championship is held every year, where participants compete not only for speed, but also for the amount and type of waste collected. The figures speak for themselves: more than three tonnes collected in a single operation, or an average of 2.2 kilos of waste per kilometer traveled.
Viral challenges are proliferating on social media – like the #PloggingChallenge – that encourage people to log miles and fill bags, while businesses adopt it as a team building or environmental volunteering activity. Meetings which, as David de Castro pointed out, go beyond competition and become a global forum for environmental education and cooperation between groups sharing the same objective: maintaining the cleanliness of natural spaces.
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