Members of Plogolution ran the length of the Thames collecting litter


Glasses, cans, plastic bottles and general litter taken from the Thames

Co-founders of Plogolution, Dermot Kavanagh and Michelle Parkes along with a team of ploggers, passed through Putney last weekend (31 May - 1 June) as part of their Ultra Plog along the length of the Thames to raise awareness of the scourge of single-use plastic.


Wrong kind of duck for the Thames

The epic plog is completed and that means they plogged the whole length of the River Thames from the source in Kemble to the Thames Barrier. That's 184 miles in 6 days!

Michelle told this website: "We can't begin to sum up the mental and physical challenge but we're all so proud of the strong team that covered all those miles. As well as 1,107 plastic bottles, 931 cans and 489 glass bottles, we also picked up 44 huge bags of rubbish for landfill. It was quite an eye opener on the amount of plastic and general litter that pollutes our environment".

Sandi , co-founder of Putney Tidy Towpath a group of local volunteers collecting litter form Putney's foreshore and towpath said: "We take our hats off to the ploggers, what a haul, but how sad that so much litter is fund along this waterway. Putney looked clean as a whistle on Saturday. Next Saturday is our next clean-up, it will be interesting to see how much litter we collect then, more or less than our usual number of bags." Anyone interested in joing the group on Saturday (8th June) email putneytt@outlook.com.



Cllr Steffi Sutters was there on Saturday to see the Plogolution team off, she told this website: "Wandsworth were the first inner London council to invite Plogolution to hold events in the borough which is fitting as Dermot, one of the founders, is a Putney resident. The first hugely successful Plog was in Battersea Park and a strong relationship has grown up from there. However nothing will ever eclipse the 184 mile ultra plog. Just had to be there on Saturday morning to wish them well on the final lap of their journey. For those of us not quite up to that, we have a plog on Saturday morning in King George's Park which I hope many residents will come along to".

June 7, 2019