How An Engineer Inspired Group Of Pune Ploggers To Collect Over 40,000 Kg Plastic From The City

Pune resident Vivek Gurav says he believes in doing and not sitting around and blaming others for everything that is wrong around him. That is exactly what he did when it came to the massive amounts of plastic waste that was piling up in his city.?

Instead of waiting for the authorities to clean it up, the 24-year-old software engineer decided to do his bit to keep his city clean.?

Gurav, who was associated with various clean-up drives in Pune ever since he was a teenager came up with the idea of plogging, and along with his friends have been spending their weekends picking up trash from the city.?

Plogging, is a concept that was originally introduced in Sweden, where people pick up trash while jogging.?

Initially, it was Gurav and few friends who were involved in the cleanup drives. But as the word spread and people saw their work, more and more joined in, making it a mass movement. In September 2019 Gurav founded Pune Ploggers, and in the nearly six months they have completed 100 Plogging Drive, which was on 26 January 2020.?

"We had originally started plogging since July, on a pilot basis. It was a small community of 15-20 people. On October 2nd we launched it officially and since then we have been conducting plogging drives regularly. Most of them take part in the drives on the weekends as they are working professionals. But there are others including me who do it every day. Every morning we go for walks, where we also collect the garbage," Gurav said.?

According to Gurav, since September they have managed to pick up over 40,000 kg of garbage from various locations of the city.?

"Last weekend we completed our target of 40,000 kgs of garbage till now. Recently, after realizing how popular plogging has become the Pune Municipal Corporation also joined hand with us and organized a mega ploggathon which saw the participation of more than one lakh citizens. On that day alone we managed to collect more than 20,000 kgs of plastic," he said.

Gurav said along with a collection of plastic waste, the Pune Ploggers is also aimed at making citizens aware of how they are responsible for keeping their city clean.?

"I have been associated with various cleanliness drives in Pune for six years. Littering is a big problem, which people do even unknowingly. This is what I want to do. I want to tell people what they are doing is wrong. For this, they have to start picking up the waste lying around, only then they will realize that what they were doing was wrong. It also sends out a message on how citizens can do their part in keeping their neighborhood clean," Gurav said.