A plogging call to arms

I think there’s a Litter Fairy.

Whenever I go outside I can see she’s stopped by.

And to be upfront, she’s nothing like the Tooth Fairy. I tried putting some rubbish under my pillow one night and woke up severely disappointed.

Which is why I’m going after her.

I have reason to believe she’s blatantly flouting the social isolation rules. She must be. How else could I still be finding litter on the ground when we’re pretty much holed up indoors?

Sure, benefit of the doubt if she’d left her crumpled receipt, once, by accident. But her chocolate wrappers and her coffee cups and her half-drunk Slurpee? In every capital city on the same day? She’ll probably say she doesn’t know there are travel bans, but I’m suspicious.

So I’ve been doing research. Watching out my windows. Following her tracks. And I reckon I’ve got her weakness pinned.

Plogging.

Yep, read that again.

Plogging.

Like lovely boxed furniture and shopping with meatballs and the zip, it comes from Sweden.

Wayyy back in 2016 Erik Ahlström starting plogging in Stockholm after he got tired of seeing all the plastic on the ground when he was out doing his most-loved exercise: jogging. So he started picking it up. And then he started carrying a bag. And then he brought a friend to carry a bag for him. And all this picking up, plocka upp in Swedish, got him so excited he joined his two fave words together and boom, plogging.

Author David Sedaris does it. The Indian PM Narendra Modi does it. And now…I’m gonna do it.

And the Litter Fairy’s not gonna like it one bit.

I’ll be plogging on the street, plogging on the beach, in the park, up the hill, down the alley. I’m gonna plog with a friend, or plog with a group (adequately spaced, of course), plog en masse (one day)…and failing that I’ll just plog myself. I’ll plog at night, during the day, in the rain. Plog fast, plog slow, plog happy, plog sad, plog until I can’t plog anymore.

By then, hopefully you’re plogging with me.

Maybe then she’ll get the message. She’ll watch us with our gloves and our bags doing our very own steeplechase and wonder why we’re cleaning up after her. She never asked us to, and she probably doesn’t want us to. But if we don’t, then who will?

Because if the Litter Fairies of the world don’t think about what they’re doing, they’re not suddenly going to change. And if we also turn a blind eye and leap over that plastic wrapping, or squash that can and leave it for dead, or let that bag blow past us in the wind, confident that someone else will get it, then we might as well believe in magic.

Which is why this is a plogging call to arms. Dust off your gym shorts, roll out a bin bag and head to the armoury to grab yourself a set of gloves. We’re in this together and we’ve got a long battle ahead. How do you want to fight?

As part of the first wave? The light brigade: fleet of foot and bag-free they whip through the combat zone and take out the obvious players.

Or perhaps the second wave? The heavy cavalry: armed with bags and eagle-eyed, they scarcely miss a beat as they ruthlessly eliminate our nemesis.

Or the third wave? The infantry: reserved for our particularly diligent soldiers and open to anyone, regardless of the state of their knees, these troops move through the battlefield methodically as they ensure the enemy’s fate is sealed.

No matter what you choose, wherever we go throughout the land we must recruit more soldiers, spread the word and fight the good fight with smiles on our faces.

Because even if they don’t know it, everyone is grateful. Grateful for every time they looked out across the beach and saw it was clean. Grateful for the park trails that appeared untouched. Grateful for the walk along the river when they didn’t see a duck paddle past an empty packet of pizza shapes.

The world we want to live in isn’t that far from the one we have. But it does take more awareness, huge enthusiasm and an unwavering belief that we can do better.

Imagine if every day, every person in Australia picked up one piece of rubbish that they saw on the ground. For argument’s sake, let’s say that rubbish weighed on average five grams. That would mean we’d collect over 100 tonnes of litter. Daily. Off our streets, out of our waterways, gone from our parks.

Mathematically, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. But if people don’t think about it, then logistically, it is.

If we get out there, whether we plog or plod, and make picking up litter part of our normal lives, then maybe the Litter Fairy would sit up and take notice. Realise that she can be a force for good, not evil.

A unified clean Australia where everyone pitches in? That really would be magical.

Felix Johnson is an writer, actor and producer living in Sydney. He loves the environment, telling stories and his personal four-bin system.