Indian student inspires ‘plogging’ across UK

London, December 11

An Indian student and award-winning environmentalist from the University of Bristol in south-west England has inspired a trend of plogging, or jogging combined with litter picking, across various cities of the UK.

Vivek Gurav, originally from Pune, was inspired by the Swedish concept of “plogging”, which combines “jogga” (jogging) with “plocka upp” (a pick-up), to encourage people take pride in keeping the streets clean.

In India, he set up a plogging community known as “Pune Ploggers” back in 2018, with over 10,000 members who have collected over 1 million kilograms of rubbish and wanted to continue the trend when he took up his scholarship position at Bristol University in September last year. Since then, his university says he has covered over 420 miles on 120 plogging “missions” joined by volunteers from 180 countries and is now taking the drive to 30 UK cities.

“I have only been plogging in Bristol but I kept getting asked by people in Manchester, Leeds, Derby, to come plogging there,” said Gurav.

“So, I decided to do a plogging challenge across 30 UK cities. I want to set-up a UK-wide plogging community like I did in India. So, if I can go out plogging across the UK, orientate people, they can start their own groups,” he said.

Earlier this year, his efforts won him the Points of Light Award. He was recognised for his 250 running challenges across Bristol to tackle litter and bringing together over 140 volunteers to clear over 3,750 kg of litter.