Plogging with Purpose: The Journey of Paul Waye

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‘Paul Waye, a dedicated plogger and environmental advocate, shares his unique journey from a small English village to becoming a professional plogger in the Netherlands. Combining his passion for running with a mission to clean up the environment, Paul highlights how his youthful ideals continue to shape his actions today. He discusses the origins of plogging, the joy he finds in picking up litter, and his ambitious plans for the future, including a cross-country plogging marathon in a banana suit. Through personal anecdotes and a commitment to positive change, Paul reveals how small actions can lead to significant impacts on our planet.’

Background

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Certainly! My name is Paul Waye, 57. I live in Haarlem, NL with my beautiful and creative wife, Karin (she is an awesome ceramicist) and two adult kids, Finley and Maia.

I was born and grew up in a beautiful little English village called Hartfield. Hartfield is famous for being the village of Winnie the Pooh. In fact when I first started running, I used to do a loop that ran past Pooh Bridge!

But rather than focus on what it was like to grow up there I want to focus on my life there as a 17-year-old, because the plogger I am today, is shaped by him.

Like all 17 yr olds I had a lot of growing up to do and was not the man I would become. But that 17 yr old had some special qualities. Qualities that mean I hold myself accountable to him today. When I do something new, I ask myself “Would 17 yr old Paul be proud of you?” - He is my yard stick.

He was ethically, idealistic, hopeful, inspiring.

Many people when they look at teenagers who are like that often use terms like “he’s naive”. But I look back and see a person we should all strive to be.

I was lost to that person for the next few decades until in 2017 I asked myself a question.

“Am I happy?”

The answer was yes, but then I asked myself a better question.

“Am I happier than I was last year?”

The answer was NO! I realised that each day I was ever so slightly getting less happy. I was still happy, but not AS happy.

So I looked at periods in my life when I was truly happy and used that knowledge to find happiness.

I still suck at life, but I am good at three things that shape my life and were brought to the front in my pursuit of happiness; plogging, running and being vegan (I even have them on my arm as a tattoo)

But most of all, they were shaped by trying to make that 17 yr old version of myself proud of me.

You are, by all accounts, a professional Plogger. For those unfamiliar with the term, can you explain in your own words what being a Plogger means.

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Yep, professional plogger! Haha I am trying to break new ground and inspire others with this journey

First off… Plogging. The best thing to do is google it (there is a nice wiki article that explains the history). But simply put it plogging is picking up trash while running.

The word was invented by the Swedes in 2016 and provides a word to unite people like me around the world; there is even a world championship! (I came second in 2022).

But I have actually been doing it for longer than that (I just didn’t have a word for it) - my first official plog is over 13 years ago; 29 Sept 2011. I know that date exactly because I made a tweet about it.

For the last 13 years I have done it in my free time. And when I say free time, I mean ALL my free time alongside a full time job.

When I lost my job this year I decided to take a leap of faith and make it my full time job! To become a professional plogger!

For me it is breaking new ground, and I will become the first true professional plogger. If I can make this work, then I want to share my story with others to hopefully inspire others to do the same.

What was the driving force behind deciding one day to start plogging? And to continue to do so for 13 years now?

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So, what happened on 29th Sept 2011? I was running to the train station (5km) when I noticed in the hedgerow all this trash, plastic bags, fast food packaging, bottles, cans etc. It was on a country lane without a footpath so I asked myself the question; “If I don't pick it up, who will?” So, I did.

I bent down and picked up a handful of items.

Ran to the train station and before I put it in the bin I made a tweet about it.

That was the start and after that I started doing it more and more (each week) until in 2019 I made an even deeper commitment; to do it on every sporting activity I do.

So now, I pick up 40,000L of trash on my daily runs (I run a lot! 4,000km a year).

Why do I continue doing it? And what is the force behind it?

Well, beyond making my 17 yr version of myself proud it is for my children, your children.

It isn’t about the negative aspect of trash, it is about the positive action I make each day and the fun I have doing it (yep, I have a lot of fun!! It sounds weird but I love doing it!).

The action of picking up a piece of trash has the power to change the world.

When you pick up a piece of trash it says that you care. You care about something other than yourself.

The world is full of horror and conflict at the moment.

But if everyone cared about others, how many conflicts and problems in the world would disappear?

And that can all begin by simply picking up a piece of trash.

That is what drives me. It doesn’t need change in legislation, it doesn’t need companies to take responsibility, it just needs us to look down at our feet and start a positive action today.

Is plogging your full-time duty or do you have a ‘day job’?

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Yep, so the idea is that this is now my full-time job (I launched just a few days ago on Oct 1st, 2024).

I need to find companies to sponsor me, and I have a great heap of benefits for them. Crazy cool benefits for them because they are enabling me to do something very special; go for a daily run, pick up trash, and tell my story and bring a positive and inspiring story into the world each and every day.

But the reason why I am so determined to make this work as my day job is because of what it will allow me to do, that I couldn't do alongside a regular job. It will let me go on bigger adventures than I ever have before. I can simply go away for a month and go crazy. And the possibilities and impact that I can create with that freedom, is just blowing my mind.

Crazy and epic gets attention from the media. So, let’s give them that.

My first big project is for the month of May, 2025.

I am running around the entire Netherlands plogging!

Over 1000km, a marathon a day, plogging, self-supported, in a banana suit.

The route linked together by the 12 capital cities of the 12 provinces in NL

It is going to be huge!

And hopefully gets eyes on me.. Because the more eyes on me, means more eyes on my mission. And the positive action we can all do each time we go outside; picking up a single piece of trash.

That’s all it takes.

I have already done some crazy things doing this in my free time (just google Paul Waye Rotterdam Marathon). So imagine what I will be able to do FULL time!!

Can you describe for us what an average day out plogging looks like? For instance, what areas do you usually target and how much rubbish are you able to collect?

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My daily plog is almost always spontaneous. I will get up and usually have an idea of how far I want to run. It could be 6km, 30km

I might need to get somewhere and then I always see if I can run there (if I can, I will plog), if not bike? If not train?

Perhaps the coolest impact plogging has made for me is that there is no average day anymore!!!

As a runner I loved doing the same route each time, as a plogger I love doing different routes each day - to see if I can find new trash (the answer is always yes)

As a plogger I see parts of my home city I would never have seen otherwise.

So, I just go out and pick up trash.

There are no rules to plogging so how I do it varies as well, but these days I usually take a reusable bag with me and empty it into a bin when it is full.

During the run/plog I try to engage with as many people as I can - and I usually have an action camera in my hand for filming myself for my social media post.

And then often what happens during that run will decide the post I make - i think around 50% of my social media posts are spontaneous like that.

I collect 40,000L of trash a year, so on average a couple of bin bags, but it varies a lot - it might be just a handful or loads - but there is always trash!

What is the #1 offending bit of rubbish you find the most? Further to this, why do you think people continue to discard this item on the ground? Additionally, what are some of the most unusual items you often find?

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Oh gosh… This is a long list! Haha

Diapers are the most upsetting for me personally - if parents are willing to just throw a diaper on the ground, what does that say about the future for their children? - yes, I find a lot of diapers each week!

Single use plastic is obviously upsetting, but as another example I will say bamboo spoons! When they banned single use plastic spoons it was great, but now I pick up bamboo ones. And that symbolises the change WE need to make. For me my mission is all about changing OUR behaviours. WE need to own the problem as much as governments and companies do.

I have loads of unusual items (I have picked up 2 goalposts over the last couple of years for example! haha) but let’s give you a positive story.

A couple of years ago I found a security box that had been broken open and thrown in the bushes. It was full of photos, letters and memories - all the valuables were gone.

I carried it home and from the contents could figure out who the owner was.

It belonged to a woman in her 90s who had been robbed - 2 people pretended to be home help. One distracted her while the other took her belongings.

Although I couldn’t repair the suffering she experienced, or replace the valuables she had lost, I could return her treasured memories that were still in that box.

And perhaps I restored a little bit of faith in the world for her.

As a plogger, I don’t always find trash, sometimes I find treasures.

In your opinion do you feel there is more your local city can do to help reduce the amount of rubbish being tossed on the ground?

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Oh gosh yes. And companies too! But I am tired of placing blame on others. I focus on WHAT I CAN DO.

If as society we take ownership, then the changes will ripple up.

Let's look inward before we look outward.

A good example came to light this last weekend. In 2023 I took part in the plogging world championships in Genoa, Italy. I was horrified by the amount of trash. HORRIFIED!

I must admit thinking “Italy, you need to get your act together!” Then last weekend I went to the champs in Italy again, this time in Gandino. The streets were spotless.

Sure... we still found trash when we looked hard, but the difference was so dramatic. It showed me how community is at the heart of it.

Since your humble beginnings in 2011, how much rubbish would you estimate you have collected? Further to this, what do you usually do with all this trash?

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No idea! Hahahahaha

Too much.
But what I do with the trash? Great question!!! The important thing is to say; there are no rules to plogging, do it how you like!

The best thing is obviously to separate and recycle the trash - and I do that sometimes (on those days I make it easy and say to myself; “today I am only picking up plastic” so I can just put in the recycling bin).

But more of the time I take a small bag (20-40L), run until it is full, and then put in the nearest bin, and then run again until it is full again.

During a Rotterdam marathon, you wore a rather unusual outfit, in the sense that it was made out of 600 Aluminium cans that you had collected while plogging! Who designed this outfit?

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I designed it! Everything you see comes from my mind - I obviously spend too much time in the sun hahahah.

There is a long, long story about it, but basically, I was inspired by Taylors Swift’s glitter dress on the Era Tour film poster. I wanted to recreate that to make my own poster. I then thought; hmm…can I run in it? The answer was yes! I have run 2 marathons and a half marathon in it!.

All to get eyes on me - all to get eyes on the mission. (I basically wanna be Kim Kardashian and have millions of followers - if I can inspire 1% of people who follow me, then I want that 1% t be as big as possible).

As for the design itself, every element tells a story.

The outfit is 400 cans and the flag 200 cans. All cans were picked up off the streets on my plogs and all were flattened (so I couldn’t return them for the deposit money).

The flag is red bull only - not to say I am against Redbull but to point out that 30% of cans I find are this brand alone! (They have a great opportunity here. They can help inspire their customers and get immediately a third less trash on the streets!).

The dress underneath was made for me by a local zero waste designer in Haarlem. She repurposed flags for the underlying dress that were used for a shopping street here in Haarlem.

The cans are individually attached (to shimmy haha) with twine and the ring pull is used on the inside of the dress to hold it in place.

The flag stick was donated by a friend - it was his fathers who had just passed away. So, in honour of him I wrote his father’s name on the flagpole. There are now several other names on it of people who have passed away.

You’re launching a website soon called wayeoflife.com can you share some details about this site and its purpose?

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Basically, to share my stories and attract sponsors. I need companies to sponsor me to make this a success…

And perhaps importantly for people - for transparency - I don’t want people to ask, “how does he make a living?” “How does he do it?”.

If people have a question, I want them to be able to find it on the website. But Instagram will remain my main platform.

Where would you personally like to see your mission for a cleaner world head in the future?

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I would love to see I have inspired some people pick up a piece of trash when they step outside. I would love to see that my professional plogging path is a success. I would love to see other people inspire to become professional Ploggers.

But most of all, my dream is that one day someone comes up to me and says…

“Paul, because of you I have stopped dropping trash” - if that ever were to happen, then that person becomes my hero. They have made a huge impact in the world.

Thank you, Paul, for taking the time out of your day to inspire others. At this stage, you are welcome to add any additional information you feel the audience should know about yourselves or share additional stories.

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Oh gosh... That was a loooooooong set of answers. I think their coffee is cold already hahaha.

So perhaps, I would love it if people followed me on Instagram and help me become Kim Kardashian hahaha.

Words of Wisdom

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I think I could have had a career in writing Hallmark greetings cards… I have stacks. But let’s leave you with two.

“When you pick up a piece of trash on your run, you turn it into something that isn’t just good for you, but good for us and good for the planet”

“Plogging is not a negative story.
It isn't against governments.
It isn't against brands.
It is a positive story.
It is intended to inspire.
It is intended to help make us realise that we can change the world through our own positive actions.
And we can have fun doing it.”