“Be the change you wish to see,” is the quote that inspired Vivek Gurav, the 27-year-old who has completed his Master’s in environmental policy and management from the University of Bristol.
“Plogging is basically jogging and picking up litter simultaneously,” Gurav a.k.a. the Plog Man told iGlobal in an interview.
Gurav is currently on a “30 City Plogging Tour”, in which he will visit cities across the UK to raise awareness about climate change. The word plogging combines “jogga” (jogging) with “plocka upp” (a pick-up), a Swedish concept and the Indian student’s plogging mission in the UK has seen him visit cities like Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff and Exeter, with many more still to cover.
Gurav’s clean up initiative kicked off in 2014 in the Indian city of Pune when he saw the polluted river Indrayani and decided to take matters into his own hands. What started off as a one-man mission, soon saw friends and people from the community contributing towards the effort.
Now, years later, Gurav’s “Pune Ploggers” team has taken off not just within India but also internationally, with many communities around the world getting in touch on guidance and advice on how to start similar campaigns at local levels.
“People got in touch, and we helped them set up their own communities there,” states Gurav, explaining that the campaign has reached multiple nations already from Sweden, Nigeria, Nepal, Bangladesh to Sri Lanka.
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During his work over the years, Gurav has seen communities across the world employ “localised solutions” to solve problems in “indigenous ways”. To further facilitate this type of indigenous problem-solving, Gurav is currently working on setting up a nation-wide sustainability forum, which aims to provide a platform for people across the world to exchange their ideas, voice opinions and share solutions for others to adapt.
Earlier this year, Gurav was invited to 10 Downing Street by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on what happened to be the British Indian leader’s first day in office. Talking about the brief exchange, Gurav said he got the chance to congratulate Sunak and wished him a Happy Diwali.
It came in the wake of the young plogger picking up the Points of Light Award from former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in recognition of his clean-up efforts. He then headed over to COY17 in Egypt – the youth version of COP27 climate summit – where he spoke about climate change and the actions we must take to stop it.
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“We do not need one person or the government to do anything; It’s a collaborative action that needs to be taken so that we all can fight against climate change together,” says Gurav, on what he has learnt from his plogging experiences.
And, the fact that “climate change does not wait for our comfort zones” is the message Gurav wants to send out with his ongoing UK tour.
*Info: Points of Light
