Residents collect 70kg garbage while ‘plogging’ in Agara Lake this morning!

Every Monday, since June 2018, a group of residents accompanied by the staff of Agara Lake and morning walkers/joggers, pick up trash at the premises of the water body.

Call it ‘plogging’ or a cleanliness drive, but this is something they began three months ago and doing it continuously and with a fervour seen only among civic activists. Plogging is a fitness trend that is all about people walking and running even while picking up plastic strewn along the roads, footpaths and park/lake premises.

Why Monday? Because the trash is maximum after the 12000-14000 people that visit the lake on weekends (6-8000/day). This morning, the amount of garbage collected by five residents, three staff workers and two citizens filled up four large bags weighing about 60-70 kilos.

“Even after the bins are made available, people still litter all over the place,” says resident Kavitha Reddy of the Agara Lake Protection & Management Society. “Plastic bottles, ice-cream cups, plastic spoons, cone Ice-cream papers, paper cups from corn, chocolate, toffees, guthka wrappers, bhel puri paper, plastic covers…”