It is perhaps a diversion for the inveterate multitasker. Enthusiasts of a Swedish-coined term, “plogging,” marry running with picking up trash along the way.
The Christian Science Monitor
Jan. 9, 2019
By Lauren Littel
It’s 6:15 a.m. on a school day, and Jocelyn Murzycki has two kids she needs to get out the door in an hour. As the sun begins to lighten the sky above Uxbridge, Mass., Ms. Murzycki could try and snag a few more minutes of sleep. Instead, she’s heading out in the freezing cold on her daily plog – a run to hunt for trash.
First, the essentials: a trash grabber and a reusable shopping bag, one side for landfill and the other for recycling. Bundled against the chill, Murzycki jogs purposefully down Main Street, bag swishing at her side, pausing briefly to retrieve a plastic cup, still full of fresh ice. She usually needs to stop halfway through her 20-minute run to empty her bag. Within a few hours Murzycki says the street will look littered again. But she isn’t deterred – it just adds fuel to her plogging fire.
The word “plogging” comes from plogga, a combination of two Swedish words that mean to pick up, “plocka upp,” and jog, “jogga.”