“Sick of seeing litter around Newport? These ploggers plan to clean it up – and you can too”
Greg Sullivan- Special to The Newport Daily News
NEWPORT – Ploggers are determined to make the upcoming Newport Rhode Races course look better after the races than it did before.
Ploggers, you ask. Well, it's a Swedish-born term for those who combine running (or walking) with picking up trash. According to plogger.org, the marriage of Swedish verbs "plocka upp" (pick up) and "jogga" (jogging) gave us plogga, from which we get plogging.
It's become an international let's-keep-this-Earth-clean movement, and it's alive and well locally. For the third year in a row, the Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District is partnering with Rhode Races to plog after the Newport Rhode Races, a lovable four-headed monster that features the following races: marathon, half-marathon, 5K, and beach mile.
This year's event is set for Saturday, April 13. The first three of those four races start and finish at Easton's Beach and the mile run is on the sand.
What will the ploggers do?
When the racing is done, the ploggers emerge. Provided with litter picking/collecting tools of the trade (including long-handled grabbers, which they get to keep), ploggers will cover the marathon course (thereby covering the half-marathon and 5K courses) at times and in course sections (1-4 miles) of their choosing.
RICD is encouraging more ploggers to join in the mission, a mission they say is fun and rewarding. The plogging time blocks are:
10 a.m. to noon.
12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.
2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
The race start times at Easton's Beach are 7:30 a.m. for the marathon; 8 a.m. for the half-marathon; 8:30 a.m. for the 5K; and noon for the mile beach race.
Plogging offers a chance for recovery, as well as helping the community-
Meg Belden, a registered dietitian from Newport, once again plans to run the half-marathon and then plog away. The plogging, she said, will serve multiple purposes, including as a recovery run following her 13.1-mile race. More importantly, she said, it's a chance to help the community, to maintain the beauty of some of Newport's and Middletown's beautiful areas. The marathon course consists of an Ocean Drive loop and a Middletown loop that extends beyond the Norman Bird Sanctuary.
The race trash will include wrappers from energy foods, drinks and gels, water station cups, and possibly some disposable clothing worn by participants at the start of a race and then discarded due to warmth. Belden emphasized the need to collect trash promptly on this coastal course because “it's only one swift breeze before the litter is in the ocean.”
Belden plogs other races and, once the weather turns warm, she'll run solo plogging missions “during the evenings when the beach is peaceful and most likely has litter from the morning beachgoers. I would encourage others to do it as it's an easy way to stay active, get outside and support a healthier planet.”
Helping to raise awareness about littering-
Vice-chair of the Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District board Jessica (Freedman) Cullinan, of Tiverton, plans to plog on Saturday in Newport. Last year, like her friend Belden, she ran the half and then plogged. That is not the plan this year. She's running a full marathon on Sunday.
Cullinan said she discovered plogging in March 2020.
“Once I caught wind of plogging, I decided it was the perfect way to kick off fundraising events with the ERICD as we had just become a 501(c)(3) just in time for COVID to put a damper on initial fundraising plans,” she said. “Our first plogging event was a plog-on-your-own contest fundraiser, which encouraged people to clean up their own neighborhoods and log their clean up finds as an entry to win contest prizes.”
The upcoming marathon plogging, Cullinan said, should also serve to raise awareness about the problem of littering in general. “Usually,” she said, “there is more pre-race trash than post-race trash.”
How to register to plog in Newport
The register to plog for the Newport races, visit https://www.easternriconservation.org/event and click the “plogging volunteer” link. The first 50 volunteers receive a free full-length dri-fit shirt in their goodies bag, which will also contain, among other things, trash bags, gloves and a map. TASK PASSWORD: ERICD.
The plog is sponsored by ∅rsted. The bags are donated by Keep Nature Wild.
For more information on Saturday's plogging, email Cullinan at jfreedman.ericd@gmail.com. She suggests registering by Friday, April 5, (morning) for time/race section preference. Volunteer registration may extend to Monday, April 8.