Keep America Beautiful® launches national plogging initiative with 5K plogging event.
From moms pushing kids in strollers to active runners, more than 200 ploggers did their part to keep 740 pounds of litter and debris off the streets of Norwalk, Connecticut, and out of nearby Long Island Sound during the inaugural Keep America Beautiful Trash Dash. The event was hosted in partnership with The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, Keep Norwalk Beautiful, and the City of Norwalk.
Plogging, a combination of jogging and picking up litter, started as an organized activity in Sweden around 2016 because of growing concerns about litter and marine debris and has since spread to other countries. Keep America Beautiful and its more than 600 community-based affiliates are leading this trend in the United States by conducting plogs to make their communities cleaner, safer, healthier, and more beautiful.
Norwalk was selected as the kickoff event location because of its proximity to Keep America Beautiful headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut – just 9 miles south of Norwalk – and to local waterways. With as much as 95% percent of Connecticut’s population living within 50 miles of Long Island Sound, the Trash Dash provided community members the opportunity to clean up neighborhoods in Norwalk and prevent litter from entering the Sound to help protect marine life.
Each plogger received a reusable bag at registration and was assigned either trash or recyclables to collect during the plog; red was for trash and blue was for recyclables. Afterward, the items were collected and weighed — totaling 284 pounds of recyclables and 456 pounds of trash. Ploggers were also equipped with litter pickers and gloves.
The event was held one week in advance of World Cleanup Day and International Coastal Cleanup Day.
Click here to learn how you can get plogging in your local community. The Title Sponsor of the Keep America Beautiful Trash Dash is Dart Container Corporation.