What is plogging?
Plogging is picking up trash while running. The word actually was invented in 2016, but I’d already been doing it for five years before then. In fact, I know the date I started. It was the 29th September 2011. That was the very first time I picked up trash. I know that because I made a tweet.
How did you become a professional plogger?
It just happened because I got made redundant. I was plogging for 13 years, and it was occupying my whole life. Literally every moment of my day was focused on trying to inspire people to become more aware about the environment around them. I never thought as a 58 old that I would actually be able to make a career of it.
The unemployment agency gave me a chance. They said, we’ll support you in what you do. And so I took a leap of faith, a huge leap of faith, and became a professional blogger.
What does a professional plogger do?
My core business is picking up trash on a run daily. And telling a positive story about it. It’s not about the trash in front of me. It’s about the trash that’s not behind me. That’s the story I want to tell.
But how do you make money picking up trash?
The easiest way to think of it is a bit like a professional athlete. So I am a sponsored plogger. The idea is to get brands in, to get their logo on my shirt. But it’s more than that. They support me to do my daily actions. They will let me go to schools for free. When the school says how much will it cost us, I say nothing. I’m supported by these brands. They pay me for being here.
Think of it a bit like a professional athlete. The difference between an athlete, though, and a professional plogger is, an athlete has three or four A-races a year. That’s where they’re really focused on. To try and get the win in those races. I’m winning every day. I’m telling a positive story every day. Value for money. I’m a lightweight, but I’m way better than Usain Bolt. He’s nothing. He runs like one race a year. I do 365 races a year. Gold medal.
Who sponsors you?
One of the biggest and first that came on board was Statiegeld Nederland. That is the deposit system for bottles and cans we’ve got in the Netherlands. I’ve been working with them before. I didn’t even pitch to them. I said, this is my plan. They went with it. Bang. That’s it.
So suddenly I’m on their social media. The other brands that come on board, they suddenly appear on their socials as well. It’s the idea of a partnership. It is not just a sponsor. I want to work with a brand and help it grow.
So Statiegeld Nederland is one. I’ve got the running shop in Haarlem, RunX, that’s been supporting me for four years. Whatever I do, they support me. And I’ve also had some funds coming in. I applied for assistance from Rabobank. So Rabobank has given me a nice pot of money to help pay for my mortgage for a bit. And I just recently won a bit of money from the Dutch lottery system as well. The Nederlandse loterij.
What is the difference between jogging and plogging for you as a runner?
Running is my passion. I’ve been doing it since I was 13 years old. I find it amazing that in my 50s, I still go out and start running with the same grin on my face. But plogging is my commitment. The difference between a runner and a blogger is night and day. As a runner, I was so focused on time. I would get grumpy if I did my normal running route and there was roadwork and I had to deviate by ten meters. I would be that focused on time. But as a plogger, I’m trying to find trash. So, it actually freed me up from those chains of restriction.
So now as a plogger, instead of going right on the same route, I go, oh I see trash. I’m going to go left or I go straight on, I don’t know where I’m going today. It’s so liberating.
And now you’re running around the Netherlands. How did you come up with this Plog Tour?
The tour around the Netherlands came out as just one of those bucket list items. To celebrate my 10th anniversary as a plogger, I came up with a 100 kilometer plog. A continuous plog. So I did that and I thought, oh, it’s kind of fun doing these huge adventures. On my bucket list was originally the idea to do the entire border. To go around the border of the Netherlands. And then someone said there was this mountain biker who did the 12 12 capital cities of each province. And I was like, oh, that’s kind of crazy and cool. Instead of just not seeing people, I’ll be going to the city.
So it was just an evolution of a bucket list item really. I never thought I would do this. But then as a professional blogger, I don’t have a desk to sit by to sit behind. I can choose what I do. I’m just going to go out for a run and pick up trash. Okay, maybe it’s going to be a different city every day. So it gives me the flexibility to do a crazy adventure.
I think it’s probably fate that came together because I came up with the idea of the 12 cities, and then I was thinking, okay, well, I need to run between them. How long is that going to take? And I just worked it out and it came to around a month. So then I fitted it all into 31 days. 31 marathons. Well, at least a marathon. Some days are 65 kilometres. So it’s the entire month of May.
Will you run it supported or unsupported?
I would love to be supported. I would love to have a bus or a van going beside me with all my gear in it. The truth is I can’t afford it. So, I’m unsupported. I’m self-supported because it’s the cheapest option for me.
So I’m going to be pushing a little baby jogger in front of me for the whole time with all my gear in it. So yeah, just the cheapest option.
I hope it’s going to be a Forrest Gump adventure. Maybe I have no one following me in the beginning, but I hope, the idea is that at the end, I have got people with me. I want people to come and say hi to me, you know, which is why I’ll be live sharing my route at any point. You can see exactly where I am on that day. Join me for a kilometer. Join me for a meter. Doesn’t matter. Just come and join me and say hi. I’d love that.
And you will run it in your famous banana suit? Or better, a different banana suit?
The best thing I could ever do when I come up with a crazy challenge, is to do it the next day. I’ve got a level of craziness, but if there’s a period between now and the start, I always think, how can I make it tougher? So yeah, I’ll add a banana suit.
The banana is amazing. I always say that when you pick up a piece of trash, you make an impact. But when people see you doing it, you can make a difference. The banana suit gets me seen. I want people to see me. Not to see how cool I am, because look at me. I’m not cool. But what I’m doing is cool. It’s easy.
The banana suit came from a shoe brand that had this thing with banana suits. And so I managed to get one. I didn’t think about it. But then I went to cheer a local race here in Haarlem, the Grachtengordel loop, I thought for fun, I’ll do it in a banana suit. And then suddenly I realized that people were looking at me more than the runners. I was like, yes, they’re looking at me. And that just sparked an idea in my head. What happens if I would be picking up trash in the banana suit?
I did it, and noticed that the impact I can make is so much greater in a banana suit, because people look at me and they go, look at that idiot in the banana. Oh, hang on, he’s picking up trash.
Becoming a professional blogger. One of the first things I thought was, I need to have a sustainable banana suit. Something I can wash, something that I can reuse. Luckily, two very different stories have come together. One is that Patagonia made me a suit out of the jackets that they used for repairs or that were not perfect enough to sell, and they kind of use that for the repair service.
The other one is a small atelier in Ede. That is a little foundation. They have made it out of old materials. What is perfect about these two suits is that I always look for a different story that I can tell? The Patagonia suit tells a story of the repair service. It tells a story about Patagonia, the sustainable company that everyone knows. And then the other one is actually a small foundation that focuses on women empowerment. It works with women that aren’t in the workforce or aren’t in the workplace, or they can’t work because maybe their language isn’t good enough. So they get Dutch lessons. They learn how to sew with old material. So it really builds that story as well.
When will this plog tour around the Netherlands be a success for you?
For me, it’s a success story the day, the minute I start, and the minute I finish.
Till then, it’s the stupidest idea ever. Because it’s more than a marathon. It’s actually going to end up being 1.500 kilometers for the month. That’s like 350k of running for four weeks. Without a break.
Hopefully it will attract sponsors. Yeah, I’m doing it for multiple reasons. I’m doing it not to raise money for a charity. I think that’s really important. People have got their own charities that they’re passionate about. Maybe that’s cancer research, maybe that’s mental health. Whatever it is, they have some connection with that charity. I want them to continue giving money to that charity.
I don’t want them to give money to my charity. So instead, all I want to do is inspire people to pick up one piece of trash. One piece. Hopefully that plants a seed of change in them. With 18 million people in this country, that’s 18 million seeds that could grow into a beautiful forest. That’s why I’m doing it.
So my success story is everything from being at the start line to putting a smile on someone’s face when they see this idiot in a banana suit pushing a baby jogger, to getting to that finish line.
