“The plogging community is waiting for you to come aboard!” I said it to Doctor Steve and I’m saying it to you. “When you jog, plog.”

---

The producers from daytime TV show The Doctor and the Diva contacted me. They were doing a segment on plogging. They seemed genuinely interested in the activity and bringing it to their audience.

Is picking up garbage off the street on TV what I got my Ivy League degrees for?

When I live in a world with this garbage, hell yeah!

Logistics took forever. I saw the work to create a show with several segments per show. Eventually schedules worked, I went to their studios, we recorded me and Doctor Steve, plogging, and here is the segment:

Though I spent more time with the producers, since we see Steve and Kim, I’ll mention how fun and open they were. Like the producers, everyone seemed genuinely interested in what plogging was like, why I did it, was there really that much trash to pick up.

When we were recording plogging on the street, I could see the film crew and Steve change from wondering if there would be enough garbage to plog to seeing how much garbage we tune out.

That difference paints a sad picture of our world, but at least for this segment, shows that the Doctor and the Diva acted to help make a difference.

I want to call out Leadership and the Environment guest Ana Rocha, the Brazilian woman in Tanzania I mentioned, and future guests Mayors of Orange County and Orlando, Florida Jerry Demings and Buddy Dyer, the first elected officials I know of in the United States to lead their communities by picking up trash — dedication, humility, and service this nation can use.

I didn’t get to mention podcast guest John Lee Dumas, whose beach cleaning inspired me to switch from thinking about switching from jogging to plogging to acting.

Thank you to the show and everyone involved for making it happen and thank you Ana, Jerry, Buddy, and JLD for inspiring me.

---

For reference, here’s my last TV appearance on plogging:

• ← 220: Michelle Tillis Lederman, part 2: Making it habitual makes it easy
• 221: Climate March Reflections →