‘Plogging’ is a sports initiative that originated in Sweden, three years ago, which involves collecting garbage while doing physical activity such as jogging, walking, running, among others. The event was totally free and in which they joined: runners, running groups, athletes and anyone who decided to collaborate.
This year’s edition of the ‘Ibiza Plogging’, in Spain, travels around the city of Ibiza and collected 1,800 kilos of garbage in the streets, according to Ibiza Sustainable, the agency that promotes this activity.
In this third edition, Ibiza hosted the activity, a pioneer event in the world that landed in ‘Balears’ promoted by Sustainable Ibiza, in collaboration with different local institutions and sports clubs within the framework of the 2030 Agenda, which promotes sport, the habits of life and healthy consumption, raised by the United Nations (UN).
The people who participated, of all ages, after a few warm-up exercises, collected around 1,830 kilos of garbage from different urban areas and forests in the surroundings of the city of Ibiza, while performing various and varied sports activities.
It should be noted that among the materials removed from the streets and forests of the city were collected more than 550 kilos of waste that were mostly remains of cars and motorcycles, in addition to a large number of bottles and plastic bags, cardboard boxes, Industrial oil bottles, cans of different foods, cigarette butts, toys and even several baby chairs.
Origin
The ‘Plogging’ was born from the restlessness of the Swedish Erik Ashtrom, runner and environmentalist who sought a solution to the problem he encountered every time he went running: a lot of waste either on the street or in nature . Ashtrom was the creator of this activity to which he gave a name that results from joining the Swedish word ‘plocka upp’, which means raising, with the Anglo-Saxon term ‘jogging‘.
In a short time, it expanded to the rest of the world. He quickly crossed the boundaries of the Swedish territory until two years ago he got a positive response in South America, Argentina.