8 MILLION tons of plastic garbage ends up in our oceans daily but it doesn’t all start on distant beaches. Plastic litter often begins on our own streets, in our own communities, where its first life as litter is as a visual blight on our neighborhoods and a hazard to local wildlife. It costs our communities money to pick it up and many items wash into our water systems and make their way into our rivers before they can be collected. These items may eventually make their way into the ocean to join billions of other pieces of plastic as a lasting global legacy of what we consume locally.
Pittsburgh Ploggers
photo: Plastic Litter in Pittsburgh, Sabrina C.
Run, walk, or jog your way to a cleaner neighborhood.
There’s a fun, easy way to get involved with the No Plastic Please campaign and make a dent in plastic litter-
Join Pittsburgh Ploggers!
What is plogging?
Plogging is an environmentally friendly fitness trend originating in Scandinavia. The idea is simply to pick up litter while you’re out running or walking. Pittsburgh Ploggers is an organization committed to keeping our community and its citizens healthy! Run, walk, or jog your way to a cleaner neighborhood.
While we love to organize group plogs, these are currently on-hold due to COVID-19. But you can still plog on your own or with a group of family or friends. Send us a photo of your plog and we’ll share it to social media.
Speaking of social media, follow us for more info!
Double your impact
Plogging gets plastic garbage out of the environment but the bigger picture is about preventing this plastic waste in the first place. One way we do that is to drive policy and product changes. And to do that, it helps to have data about litter. That’s why No Plastic Please and Pittsburgh Ploggers recommend using the Litterati mobile app if you can when you plog to document what you’re picking up.
Snap, Pick, Tag!
Litterati is a free app used around the world for photographing and tagging litter. It’s easy: when you see some litter, you snap a photo and then pick it up. Once you upload your photos, you can tag them to contribute to data on litter. Litterati provides global and local data on items collected including the type of object, material, their brand, and where they were found.
You can use Litterati on your own to track your litter pickups or by joining the ongoing No Plastic Please challenge using the code “PGHPLOG” you can be part of our litter pickup team and see your impact added to others across the Pittsburgh region.
