WATCH: Durban man keeps his environment and himself healthy by plogging

WORLD Health Day is an annual celebration that takes place on April 7. It encourages people all over the globe to keep the planet and humans healthy.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the day is about attracting attention to promote a movement to create societies that are focused on well-being. This year’s theme is Our Planet, Our Health.

Climate change and plastic pollution pose the greatest threat to our planet.

Grant Harper, a Durban resident, believes this can be achieved Through plogging, a fitness program that combines jogging and picking up litter.

The term comes from a Swedish word that combines plockaupp, which is picking up and jogging. This gives you plogging.

I heard about plogging a few years ago and I care about the environment and enjoy running, whether it’s on the trail or on the road. You only need your running gear and bags for litter to plog. My route is around Durban North, the area where I live. The length which you run doesn’t matter as long as you are exercising and picking up litter, he explained.

I plog once per week and find that single-use plastics such as coffee cups and plastic bottles are often discarded along the roadsides or on the verges. I can usually find eight bags of rubbish that I can collect and I dump them in the nearest trash bin. Personally I would love to see more people do plogging as you can do it on your own time and choose where you’d like to do it.