She said:
“For the Sustainability Team to make the time to host a plogging event a few days before Marathon Day really shows their commitment to finding ways to build community, take care of our planet, and be a positive force in this world. It has been amazing to give back to the city that’s going to give us so much on Sunday.”
“The surprising part for me was finding a lot of rubbish inside the planter boxes. It made me a little sad, but it was good to remove it. When there’s less rubbish in there to start with, people are less likely to stuff more in there.”
Another plogger was Bridget Chavez. This will be Bridget’s seventh marathon, and she was keen to come to the event to make a difference.
“It’s cool to see people coming together to do something that seems small, but can have such a lasting impact,” she said. “These plastics and paper wind up in the environment, and no one picks them up, and they slowly ruin the earth. So hopefully people seeing us out here can take that example and pick up one piece of trash, because just one person doing one small thing can actually make a difference.”
The group of ploggers worked together to reduce waste on the streets and parks they passed through, directly helping to reduce pollution. Beyond the immediate clean-up, the event also encouraged runners to think differently about waste and be more considerate towards the environment in their everyday lives.
The London National Park City team is keen to support clean-up initiatives like this, as well as highlight and celebrate London’s vast network of green and blue spaces.
A London National Park City spokesperson explained:
“London is greener and wilder than you might think! Over 50% of the capital is green and blue, home to 8.4 million trees, 17,500 species (other than humans), 4,400 parks and green spaces, 850km of streams and rivers, four World Heritage Sites, two National Nature Reserves, and 142 Local Nature Reserves.”
It was this richness that led London to become the world’s first National Park City in 2019, when more than 300 organisations and thousands of individuals came together around a shared mission: to make the city a place where people and nature are more closely connected.
