Here They Plog
Coming at you live with more good news throughout the globe! As a brown-haired Swede, I might look like a fraud, but I truly am proud of my heritage. The Scandanavian are always up to cool things. One minute, their neurons are firing off in a club at 3am listening to old Avicii while they borrow happiness from tomorrow. The next, they are out there plogging away. And for those who don’t know what plogging means, that’s okay. I just learned it as well. It sounds like a bad trip to the bathroom or an intricate sex position. In reality, it’s much more wholesome than the two.
Plogging derives from the combination of the Swedish word ‘plocka’, which means to pick up, and the English word ‘jogging’. Since Swede Erik Ahlström began picking up litter while jogging, i.e. plogging, the activity has spread to other countries and is now practiced by an estimated 2 million people who ‘plog’ regularly. I’m talking squatting. I’m talking bending over. Now I’m talking that one thing that really only soccer players do where they stand on one leg and lean over to pick something up while their other foot is in the air. Since plogging, there has even been an emergence of ‘pliking’ – the good people cleaning up their hiking trails.
Plog Champs
2023’s World Plogging Championship saw approximately 6,600 pounds of litter picked up and trashed away in the city of Genoa. Imagine this was practiced by Americans in, oh I don’t know… say Manhattan. We could clean up an amount of litter that would rival the size and weight of Texas, possibly Olympus. From what I can tell, it’s the team that runs the furthest and picks up the most litter wins. Seems simple enough, right? Well for someone who has ran a half marathon without training, using your quads for more than a single, measly, unnecessary second you don’t need to can be the match in the powder keg. That last Sprite Zero can will be your demise on mile 10.
So for all my fitness gurus looking to not only get a workout in, but become a virtuous, environmental saviors this weekend, come plog with me. Our impromptu squat workout will be talked about by the Facebook moms for years. We will go down in history as sweaty, out-of-breath environmental warriors spreading the good word with a garbage bag trophy. Fuck global warming. We are taking back our planet one plog at a time. Shoutout to Erik, and shoutout to all of those who believed in his mission. Join me in becoming plog champs, and let’s keep calm and plog on. I’ll see y’all at the 2025 World Plogging Championship.