La Carrera Plogging on Sunday the 20th was organised by the Asociación de Jóvenes Empresarios and the Fundación Miguel García.

The area chosen to carry out the litter blitz was Puntalón and the results of the efforts by these volunteers was impressive. They managed to pick up and dispose of 2,620 kilos, or 2.6 tonnes, if you prefer.

Several organisations provided the gear needed, such as gloves, T-shirts, rubbish bags, etc: the Vicerrectorado de Estudiantes y Vida Universitaria, The Vicerrectorado de Infraestructuras y Sostenibilidad belonging to the University of Granada, The Cátedra La Huella Verde and the Asociación Colina, which between them kitted out 25 volunteers from the university. The University of Granada also hired the bus for the volunteers runners.

We should have pointed out that plogging is a combination of running and picking up litter, so it is in the essence a race. In fact one team comprising university students and resident of the metropolitan area of Granada, Amigos y Familiares” won the top prize after picking up 148 kilos of litter and coming in first.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about plogging: “Plogging is a combination of jogging with picking up litter, merging the Swedish verbs plocka upp (pick up) and jogga (jog) gives the new Swedish verb plogga, from which the word plogging derives. It started as an organised activity in Sweden around 2016 and spread to other countries in 2018, following increased concern about plastic pollution. As a workout, it provides variation in body movements by adding bending, squatting and stretching to the main action of running, hiking, or walking. An estimated 2,000,000 people plog daily in 100 countries and some plogging events have attracted over 3,000,000 participants.”

The event started at 10.00h in the morning and included five routes around the municipality of Puntalón. Afterwards there was a DJ with canned musick, zumba sessions and food, whilst they awaited the results.

(News: Puntalón, Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)

Keywords: Plogging, Litter, University Students, Puntalon, Swedish Origin