1. What is Plogging?
A Swedish trend of responsible citizenry of picking up whatever trash you see while you jog or walk on the road, beach etc.
2. How did the idea for the Colombo Plogging Race come about?
We had been thinking about something similar and we got a proposal from an individual who wanted to do it with Ananta. We jumped on the idea because all of Ananta's energy goes into community based projects to engage individuals with the waste issue. We believe change happens one by one, until it snowballs into lasting change.
3. Who was involved in the organization of this event?
Was it easy? It was Ananta Sustainables team of 3, one employee from FOX who drove the fox airtime and securing a location, and the individual that initially approached us.
4. How did you pick a location for the race?
We wanted somewhere accessible, and heavily populated, but also a place people could come hang out and enjoy themselves while they were at it. If we want cleaning up after ourselves in this nature, and custodianship of our beaches and natural environment to become popular it has to at the very least be enjoyable!
5. How did the Colombo Plogging Race go? Was it successful?
It was a grand success! 55 participants collected 1350+ kilograms of trash!!!! With many people requesting we do it even once a month!
6. What did you do with all of the trash collected?
We organized for the DMC to collect it, and verified the recyclers they were sending the segregated trash to were legitimate.
7. Do you think it fostered some long term changes (behavior changes) in the participants and the community?
A lot of us don't throw our trash everywhere, but we don't think about segregation and our consumption. This race incentivized segregation, because we had winners for each category of waste [Plastic, Metal, Glass, Landfiill- which is everything else that cannot be recycled because it's mixed material!] We had a lot of people say they never thought about where all their trash ends up, and how many categories of trash we generate!
8. Any future plans?
Another Plogging Race in another location? Yes! We need to keep the ball rolling! We haven't planned it yet, but we hope to have one soon!
