The third 2021 Plogging China activity was held in Haizhu's Xing Cultural Plaza on Dec 11.

Plogging is a mash-up of jogging and the Swedish word "plocka upp", meaning pick up. It was started by Swede Erik Ahlstrom as a way to encourage people to pick up trash as they jog. Plogging became increasingly popular and by 2016 it had become an official athletic event in Sweden.

The route is about 2.5 kilometers long, running from Xing Cultural Plaza to the end of Liede Bridge. There are four rubbish classification drawing boards along the way to teach participants more about the sustainable development of packaging.

A boy throws rubbish in a trash can. [Photo/Yangcheng Evening News]

A captain of the Happy Trekking volunteer service team surnamed Liu said their team was formed in 2017. They pick up plastic bottles, plastic products, and small food plastic packaging on the weekends in Guangzhou's forest parks. They are able to pick up 20-40 kilograms of trash each time.

A volunteer in the 2021 Plogging China activity picks up trash. [Photo/Yangcheng Evening News]

Activities include environmental painting and garbage sorting interactive games. Professional painters use face and body painting to express environmental protection concepts related to the Earth, tree planting, and recycling. Participants can also learn about garbage sorting during the event.

The 2021 Plogging China activity includes the transformation of 11 environmental protection sites, 3 metric tons of plastic packaging waste into daily chemical packaging, and the donation of 20,000 tree saplings.

The donated trees will boost the coverage of forest and grass vegetation in afforested land to more than 45 percent, and 300,000 square meters of desert will be reforested.