A plogging event, in which more than 250 participants picked up waste while walking, was held in the Phuc Long wet market area in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday.

Plogging is a combination of jogging with picking up litter.

Many countries have encouraged the plogging trend as it helps promote a healthy lifestyle while demonstrating responsibility to the environment and society.

During the 'Plogging - Walking & Waste Pick-up' event, jointly held by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union in District 7 and RMIT University, teams picked up waste while jogging on a three-kilometer route for 1.5 hours.

In total, participating teams collected over 365 kilograms of waste.

The collected plastic waste was sent to recycling units.

If the plastic waste is moved to landfills, it will need at least 450 years to decompose.

The 'Plogging - Walking & Waste Pick-up' event was in response to the World Cleanup Day 2023 (September 16).

The event marked a new stride in the district’s environmental protection campaign, according to vice-chairwoman of the People’s Committee of District 7 Nguyen Thi Be Ngoan.

The activity helped young people and all residents enhance their awareness of, and proactively get involved in, environmental protection and maintain a green lifestyle, contributing to improving the quality of life in District 7, Ngoan said.

Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union in District 7 Mai Trong Thang said the activity, combining environmental protection with physical exercise, was held for the first time but it might become a new trend.

Pham Thi Ngoc Trang, a student at RMIT University, said, “I hope garbage classification will become a daily habit to ease pressure on the increasingly overloaded garbage collection system, creating new resources while we're heading toward a more sustainable lifestyle.”

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