One of the most surprising aspects of 'plogging' is its rapid international growth. In scarcely 3 years, the initial impulse of an anonymous citizen has spread like wildfire through 5 continents, and almost all the world's major cities, like London, Mexico City and Seoul have 'plogging' groups.
The contributory factors to the success of this initiative include, for example, growing concern for ecology and a healthy lifestyle, the fashion for jogging, and the simplicity and community spirit engendered by 'plogging' amongst its followers. Fans of this practice develop typical sporting values such as companionship, solidarity, effort and perseverance at the same time as emphasising their commitment to the environment.
The North American news portal BuzzFeed News reports that the litter that 'ploggers' pick up the most includes single-use plastics such as bottles and plastic tops, sandwich and sweet wrappers, fast food packaging, lids, straws and disposable cutlery.
Why buy new stuff when you can reuse them instead of disposing them and adding to the existing burden on our landfills?" asks G Nagaraj, popularly known as Bengaluru's Plogman. An interesting moniker, don't you think? He recalls, "Back in 2015–16, people didn't know what plogging meant. It all started when Erik Ahlström started plogging in the Swedish capital city of Stockholm in 2016 and also launched a website — plogga.se — encouraging volunteers to be part of this activity. That's how I was inspired by Erik's activities."
From then on, Nagaraj organised various plogging activities across Bengaluru and collaborated with several bloggers across the country. He says, "Since a lot of people did not know the meaning of the word plogging, we used to call it a 'clean up' activity surrounding lakes, parks and streets. That's how I and a few like-minded people came together to form a group The Indian Ploggers Army in 2018. In the same year, my eight-year-old daughter and I plogged for more than 115 hours —participating in marathons, plantation drives and a few other environment-related activities across the city."