Chennai | A citizen group ‘plogs’ — jogs and picks up litter enroute

Join Chennai Ploggers to jog and pick up litter, building a community to keep Chennai clean and green.

Three weeks ago, Shanthni Mahalingam had visited Sathyam Cinemas to catch a film. “This person next to me ripped open a packet of popcorn seasoning and threw it on a freshly cleaned floor. Someone had just taken the effort to mop the place. It was heart-breaking to see,” she says.

An educator today, Shanthni says that conversations about littering and bursting crackers with her teachers when she was a student, helped her realise her own contribution to the world’s growing garbage piles at dump yards. Although she has been mindful over the years, she has felt that much of it was practised in isolation. Incidents like this remind her that it is important to take a larger message forward, especially at her home turf in Chennai. A recent, more proactive approach to ‘cleaning up after oneself’ has led to the formation of her two-edition old initiative — Chennai Ploggers.

Here, enthusiasts with a penchant for fitness, pick up litter as they jog.

The spark arose when Shanthni’s interactions with Vivek Gurav, founder of Pune Ploggers, became frequent back in 2021. “He was receiving an award and I was the product manager of the event. The philosophies and connections were both organic and in-sync. When I asked Vivek to begin a chapter in Chennai, he said ‘You’re a person of action. Why don’t you begin one yourself.’ That is basically the origin story,” she says.

Although plogging events have been conducted in Chennai before, Shanthni is hoping to build a community around the initiative. In the two editions held till date at Besant Nagar and T Nagar over two months, Shanthni and her team have tried to form plogging routes that residents of the neighbourhood can regularly choose to take if they wished to plog more often. The idea is to set up chapters across Chennai so that littering can be contained. Beaches are not the only locations in the city that require regular cleaning, the founder says.

A typical event by the Chennai Ploggers happens once a month at around 5.45am to beat the heat. Enthusiasts from all age groups gather and are briefed. “We typically tell them to ensure that road safety instructions are followed. It is not essential that one jogs. Walking will do. We also drive home the message that ploggers do not litter themselves. We strongly discourage usage of single-use plastic during the event,” she says.

After the briefing, a 45-minute plogging exercise is conducted. Here, Shanthini says, is where the fun begins.