I swear all of my Earth Day posts aren’t going to have funny words in them… but here’s another one! Plogging is a combination of jogging and picking up litter, it was originally coined in Sweden (merging the Swedish verbs plocka upp (pick up) and jogga (jog). In our case its really more hiking than jogging, but I ‘m not sure piking has the same ring to it. Sadly this is a tremendously easy hike to do– there is litter nearly everywhere we hike. The only trick is to remember to bring a bag to collect litter in, and possibly some gloves so no one is touching trash directly. I didn’t used to be squeamish about it, but covid and the proliferation of discarded face masks in public parks has changed that. That’s all there is to this hike, go some place lovely, hike, pick up the trash you find. I find that nearly all kids are super enthusiastic about picking up trash and enjoy this hike. I look forward to a day where it’s difficult to find places to pick up trash in natural areas, but that day is sadly not today.
Ideas to repurpose your trash or extend learning:
Make a data visualization that shows other people how much trash you found and what types of trash you found.
Use the trash you found to make art!
Learn how to make plarn with discarded grocery bags here.
Learn how to make garden markers with old soda cans here.
Learn how to make drawing machines with discarded materials here.