French Huizhou resident pioneers 'plogging' in China

Have you heard the word "plogging" before? It's a combination of the words "picking" and "jogging", and it's an environmental protection campaign to pick up garbage while jogging that started in Europe. Now a Frenchman, Olivier, is promoting this campaign in Huizhou, South China's Guangdong province.

Olivier married a Chinese ethnic Hakka girl, Zhong Lingyu, several years ago. Zhong said they set up their company's branch in Huizhou in late 2014, and chose to settle in the city and start their family.

As he lives by the Dongjiang River, Olivier likes going to the riverside park every afternoon to jog or do other exercises. Over time, he noticed some places full of plastic waste off the beaten path, such as places where fishermen gather.

Over a year ago, Olivier started to "plog" at the bank of the river. His running gear includes a special item: a garbage bag. Influenced by his enthusiasm for picking up garbage in his WeChat posts, more and more people are joining in to engage in "plogging". His action has made garbage-picking an enjoyable sport.

In Olivier's view, "plogging" keeps people and the planet healthy.

Through his work in tourism, he and his friends have traveled around the world. And they've found plastic pollution in European countries, as well as Chinese cities.

Olivier's sensitivity to plastic pollution makes him a hard-working garbage picker — whenever he sees garbage, he can't help but collect it and discard it in the trash. That's why he never drinks packaged drinks or uses one-off plastic products.

In the beginning, "plogging" was only a habit with Olivier and his wife, but later others were influenced and joined in. So the couple made a WeChat group to gather people to collect trash at the bank of the Dongjiang River and in the parks.

Currently there are over 100 people from different parts of the country in the group, promoting this burgeoning environmental movement.

Chen, who participated in the activity for the first time, discovered garbage-picking was not as embarrassing as she thought; instead, she felt quite fulfilled. "But I hope that people don't have to feel fulfilled in the future, and just want to throw garbage in the can," she said.

"I believe someone needs to take the lead and decide to do something, just like I'm doing now. Huizhou people might be surprised and self-reflect when they see a foreigner cleaning their city," Olivier said.

He also hopes to find a better way to deal with plastic bottles he collects, such as changing them into art or integrating them in buildings as is done in Cambodia.

"Only by acting with self-consciousness can we make the environment better," Olivier said.