“Bade Deshon mei kachra bhi mehenga hota hai,” ("in big cities, even trash is expensive") said plogman Vivek Gurav, a pioneering environmentalist who has been plogging across India and the world for over a decade now. A University of Bristol-graduate, Gurav continues to plog across the United Kingdom after having started this journey in Pune as a computer engineering student, back in 2013.
He founded Pune Ploggers, the first plogging community in India, in 2019. Today, there are over 30+ cities and towns across the country and the world where plogging communities have come up.
“In Pune, rivers were naalas (drains). I could no longer take a dip in the river or sip on river water like I could back in Jaysingpur, my hometown,” remarked Gurav in an exclusive conversation with Outlook Traveller. “This saddened me. That is when I decided that I needed to do something about it rather than pointing fingers or doing nothing,” he added.
Plogging is the act of picking up litter while jogging. It is usually an individual activity but in India it started off as a community-based initiative. Gurav, who moved to Alandi in Pune for his education, was troubled by the dirt in the city—something he hadn't experienced in his hometown.
“One fine day in 2013, I decided to walk and just pick up litter. The next day, a few friends joined in and soon we organised our first plogging event where close to a 100 people participated,” said Gurav. It was only in 2019 that he realised that plogging was picking up as an interesting campaign even globally. It was an activity that promoted body fitness and environmental health simultaneously. It was then that Pune Ploggers was founded with the message, “Join us once and you will never litter again.”
One of the first drives of Pune Ploggers was organised in Alandi, a pilgrimage spot that attracts more than 5 lakh warkaris (devotees of the Hindu deity Vithoba), each year. These pilgrims walk in groups from Alandi to Pandharpur. The ploggers started their walk along with these warkaris. Each group took responsibility for their own litter and participated in the plog drive in full gusto. “Our message through this was clear. To be a plogger, you can be anyone, doing anything,” claimed Gurav.
Ever since, they have organised plogging drives across many towns, villages, rivers, and monuments in Pune. Alandi, Sinhagad, Bhor, Raigad, Korigad, Kavadipat, Dighi, Thakarwadi, Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), and Vetal Tekdi are some areas in Pune where these drives were organised.
India’s first all-women plogging drive was organised In the Bhor village of Pune, where the village's local women were brought together to clean it up. “We realised that they understood the problem like no one else. But they did not know what to do about it. Our aim was to help them with a solution,” said Gurav who showcased an entire waste life cycle plan to them before organising the drive.
They also took to tourist spots like the Pawna Lake, Tung Fort, and Torna Fort to organise prekking (combination of plogging and trekking) drives. “While our ploggers are introduced to the historical value of these sites, we also aim to make a point that the conservation of these monuments is a much greater responsibility,” said Gurav.
As these plogging drives began to muster attention on the internet, Pune Ploggers expanded to other cities across India. “Each city has its own problems, and also its own way and culture of dealing with it. We allowed our friends in other cities to own the community and run it according to what works for them,” said Gurav.
Puneri Patya (signposts with messages) are an important part of Pune’s messaging and awareness-generation culture. Pune Ploggers used these to gather people’s attention to their cause. Similarly in Mumbai, ploggers focussed their attention on beach plog drives. Similarly in Chennai, focus is on plogging around residential areas. In both cities, places were chosen basis the density of crowds in a particular destination.
After his cause found momentum, recognition, and participation in India, Gurav moved to the United Kingdom in to pursue his Masters degree in Climate Change Science in September 2021. “I came to the UK with a very different picture from what I actually saw here,” he smirked.
After spending Christmas in London, Gurav realised that cities in the UK were as dirty and littered as those in India. “It was quite opposed to the projections that we as Indians are exposed to," Gurav added. He mentioned that the only difference in the UK was that most of the trash here was "rich trash" (as he likes to call it). “The litter that made it to the streets was quite expensive stuff, including beer bottles, cans, electronic vapes, and cigarette buds” Gurav remarked.
He initially took up a 30-day plogging challenge in Bristol where he would walk three miles everyday and pick up at least one bag full of trash. The city now has a plogging community that is going strong. “I also took up the 30 day 30 cities challenge in the UK in 2022. Today I have been to over 40 cities,” Gurav said.
From Leeds, Birmingham, and Nottingham to Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, Gurav has plogged across many cities across the UK. “Bath and Bristol have to be the cleanest of them all,” Gurav smiled. He was also awarded the Points of Light award by the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson. “It was quite ironic that an Indian was picking up trash in the UK. However, the activity is such that it exceeds all political and historical limitations, and that is the beauty of it,” Gurav said.
With a journey of over 10 years, Gurav faced many hurdles along the way including bans, snarky comments, and stubborn locals. In an incident in Alandi, where the idea of Pune Ploggers took shape, they were attacked by the locals while cleaning the Indrayani river during Ganesh Visarjan. The reason? Hurting religious sentiments.
“The river was extremely dirty and our only intention was to clean it,” defended Gurav.
He also mentioned that many villagers are wary of outsiders cleaning their village because that does them more harm than good. “Some people visit once in a blue moon without a proper plan and collect the waste only to pile it up near the village,” Gurav added.
Similarly in the United Kingdom, Gurav met people who passed unpleasant comments on his identity. “Many people came up to me and asked me to return to India to solve a host of problems we have,” Gurav laughed.
Gurav considers plogging to be a journey without a stop. “It is an activity that allows you to keep going and that is what keeps me going, too,” said Gurav. He aims to spread his ideas globally. He has plogged across Türkiye, and Egypt, with plans to visit Thailand this year.
Additionally, he also launched Plog Yatra, a climate action pilgrimage as a part of which he urges people to carry back their own litter from wherever they go “I can assure you, you will return with more waste than you went with,” Gurav signed off.
