CSR: Plogging – An Altruistic Fitness Trend
Waking up early and stepping out to jog in the fresh morning air, but getting irritated instead for having to navigate your way through littered waste, is a story of every jogger in the world. We all get disappointed in such a situation. Many of us often end up changing the fitness routine. But few of us take action to change the situation. Swedes are among the latter, for initiating Plogging.
Plogging is a new altruistic health trend which has been picked up globally by several environmental and fitness activists. The trend has taken up social media by the storm with several influencers and millennials promoting it.
The word plogging comes from the words “plocka up” which means pick up in Swedish and Jogging. Plogging focuses on picking up garbage that you see on a run, thus incorporating squats into your workout and environmental benefits. It also has physical benefits, since it adds variation to a run and actually burns more calories. As reported by the Washington Post, “the Swedish-based fitness app Lifesum, which earlier this month made it possible for users to track plogging activity, a half-hour of jogging plus picking up trash will burn 288 calories for the average person, compared with the 235 burned by jogging alone.”
Plogging can help bring a new routine to a daily workout and gives runners (especially novices) the opportunity to take breaks while running.
While the term plogging was coined only in 2016 and has been an idea by the Swedish, a company in India has already been doing something similar. Indiahikes has been cleaning mountains while trekking and hiking for more than five years. The company takes people hiking and trekking in the mountains. The participants are provided with an eco bag on the trek which they tie on their waist to pick up the non-biodegradable trash on the way, which the company later collects, segregates and manages to dispose off in an appropriate manner.
Apart from this, Plogging has been picked up by citizens of over 20 cities in the country. With social media groups dedicated to this activity, people gather from time to time to work out while cleaning up the place in various cities of the country.
Plogging can be a perfect activity for an employee volunteer program and team building activity for a corporate. Such corporate participation and celebrity endorsement along with integration with the Swachh Bharat Mission can prove to be a revolutionary cleanliness drive for our country.
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Regards,
The CSR Journal Team
