AN ENVIRONMENTALIST will be travelling Reading to help clean up its act as part of a 30-city tour.
Vivek Gurav is travelling to a different city or location every day for 30 days on foot, jogging and picking up litter as he goes.
His tour of 30 cities continued on Monday, December 19, in Oxford, and will reach Reading and Slough on Tuesday, December 20, Brighton and Portsmouth on December 21, London on December 22, and Northampton on Friday, December 23.
He began the “plogging” while he was in India in 2018 and continued the practise after moving to Birmingham to study in 2021.
Following his graduation from the University of Bristol, Mr Gurav has been joined by volunteers from 180 countries over 120 litter picking “missions.”
Having covered 420 miles, he was featured on BBC’s The One Show and received an award from the Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson.
In October, he was invited by Rishi Sunak to 10 Downing Street and spoke at November’s COY17, the youth version of the COP27.
Mr Gurav said: “I had only been plogging in Bristol but I kept getting asked by people in Manchester, Leeds, Derby, to come plogging there, so I decided to do a plogging challenge across 30 UK cities.
He’s hoping to inspire the others to combine jogging and litter picking to create their own plogging groups.
“Ultimately, I want to set-up a UK-wide plogging community like I did back in India. So, if I can go out plogging across the UK, orientate people, give them a blueprint, then they can start their own groups.”
“COY was amazing, a real opportunity, the award from the Prime Minister really motivated me to do more, and going to 10 Downing Street.
“That was the best thing that has happened to me, any of my friends or family, or anyone in my community in India.
“They are really happy, they look to me as an example now– now I get asked all the time by Indian people how they can come and study in the UK.
“They want to follow my path. It feels good to be able to help.”
Mr Gurav’s journey can be followed online by visiting his Instagram page.
