Ripu Daman Bevli, popularly known as the ‘Plogging Man of India’, has turned the simple act of picking up litter while running into a wider citizen-led cleanliness movement. Bevli began plogging in 2017 and went on to build Ploggers of India, encouraging runners, students, communities and organisations to combine physical activity with cleaning public spaces. His most prominent campaign came in 2019, when he and his team travelled across 50 cities, covering more than 1,000 km and collecting 2.7 tonnes of garbage in about two months.
The initiative was incorporated into the government’s Fit India movement, and in December 2019, then Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Kiren Rijiju felicitated Bevli and named him India’s Plogging Ambassador. Rijiju described plogging as a way to combine fitness with cleanliness and said that cleaning was “everyone’s job”.
Starting With Litter
Bevli’s journey into plogging began in 2017, when he started picking up waste during his runs. Plogging combines jogging with collecting litter found along the route. Rather than treating the activity solely as a clean-up exercise, Bevli used running and fitness to encourage people to participate in keeping their surroundings clean. His early efforts grew into organised awareness and plogging drives involving communities and educational institutions. Bevli has explained that schoolchildren became an important audience for his work, leading him to develop activities that connected cleanliness with fitness and sport.
Taking It Nationwide
The scale of Bevli’s work expanded significantly in 2019 through the Run To Make India Litter Free campaign. Over roughly two months, he and his team covered more than 1,000 km across 50 cities and collected 2.7 tonnes of garbage. The campaign brought plogging into the public spotlight and demonstrated how running could be used to involve people in local cleanliness efforts.
On October 2, 2019, the first Fit India Plogging Run was also organised nationally, with the government reporting participation of more than 36 lakh people across over 62,000 locations. The initiative involved organisations including the Sports Authority of India, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, National Service Scheme, NGOs and Kendriya Vidyalayas.
Beyond Clean-Ups
For Bevli, however, collecting litter is only one part of the work. He has consistently spoken about the need to prevent waste from being generated and to change everyday behaviour around consumption and disposal. His initiatives have included Trash Workout, which uses fitness activities to engage participants in cleanliness, and Plastic Upvaas, which encouraged people to reduce their dependence on plastic.
In a 2020 interview, Bevli said that the country could not simply clean its way out of the problem without also addressing littering and household waste generation. He advocated starting with small behavioural changes, such as giving up one single-use item and gradually making further changes.
Building A Movement
The movement subsequently grew beyond Bevli’s individual runs. In a 2021 account of his work, Bevli said the Litter Free India movement had conducted more than 500 clean-ups in over 100 cities and collected more than 150 tonnes of litter at that point. The government’s recognition in 2019 gave the idea an additional national platform, while Bevli continued to promote cleanliness through fitness-based activities.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Bevli’s work offers a useful reminder that civic responsibility can begin with something as ordinary as refusing to walk past a piece of litter. His contribution is not simply the waste collected during a run, but the attempt to make people see public spaces as shared responsibilities. At the same time, clean-up campaigns cannot replace better waste management or responsible consumption.
Picking up litter addresses what has already been discarded; reducing unnecessary waste addresses the problem earlier in the chain. The strength of plogging lies in bringing these two ideas together: action in the present and awareness for the future. As more citizens become involved, the challenge is to ensure that such participation leads to lasting behavioural change rather than temporary clean-up efforts.
Can simple acts like picking up litter during a daily run help create a stronger culture of civic responsibility?
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