Plog On Canals is a team of five individuals all with the common interest of working with the local community to improve green spaces in Birmingham.
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The team Charlotte, Katie, Harry, Rhi and Kate met while taking part in UpRising Birmingham's Environmental Leadership Programme​. After several months of inspiring workshops from local leaders and enhancing our environmental knowledge we set to work on deciding what positive change we wanted to see in Birmingham.
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Our Ethos
So how did this lead to Plog On Canals?
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It's inevitable that when talking about Birmingham, it's not long before you hear the statement 'we have more canals than venice'. ​It's a fact we pull out when we want to show off our pride for the city and with the canal networks navigating through the heart of the city centre it isn't surprising to see why.
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For many people, including us at Plog On Canals, the canal network is their closest green space to explore. However, despite the canals being well used for walking, cycling and running in many areas we noticed there was still an issue with litter!
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Canal pathways are relatively narrow and so any litter dropped here is very likely to end up in the water itself. It is then much harder to clean and poses a risk to the wildlife that call the canals home as well as ruining the appearance of what should be a beautiful part of our city.
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After seeing the positive results many runners worldwide have had with plogging, we wanted to show that the runners of Birmingham can do the same. Many runners already use and appreciate their access to the canal network so plogging provides a great chance to combine exercise with looking after the local environment and keeping our canals free from litter!
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Our Mission