The district mayor and about 80 residents walked roughly 2 kilometers from Seongsu Station to Yeonmujang-gil on Wednesday, collecting litter along the way.
Seoul's Seongdong-gu held a "plogging" campaign in the Yeonmujang-gil area of Seongsu-dong on Wednesday, bringing together the district mayor and local residents to pick up litter along the streets.
"Plogging" blends the Korean word for "picking up" with "jogging" and refers to the practice of collecting street litter while walking or running. The campaign was designed to shift public awareness from cleaning up trash after the fact to not littering in the first place, and to foster a culture in which residents take ownership of keeping their neighborhood clean.
The Seongsu-dong area has seen a sharp rise in domestic and international visitors drawn to its pop-up stores and café strips, bringing with it a surge in street litter — disposable cups, cigarette butts and flyers among the most common items. The district has deployed cleaning crews for regular sweeps, but is also working to encourage voluntary participation from residents and visitors to sustain a cleaner street environment over the long term.
About 80 people took part in Wednesday's campaign, including Seongdong-gu District Mayor Yoo Bo-hwa, members of the district's civic evaluation panel, and residents from Seongsu-dong and Sageun-dong. Participants gathered at Seongsu-dong Shoe Theme Park, where they learned proper waste-disposal practices through an environmental quiz before setting out with tongs and trash bags.
Divided into groups by zone, participants walked roughly 2 kilometers from the Shoe Theme Park through Seongsu Station, the handcrafted shoe street and Yeonmujang-gil, collecting litter from roadsides and storm drains along the route.
The campaign grew out of a neighborhood street-cleaning initiative that ran from July through October, in which the district mayor, residents and staff cleaned alleys and roadsides in each dong every Wednesday morning. This latest effort marks the evolution of that program into a broader, resident-led campaign for cleaner streets.
The district plans to analyze data gathered during the campaign — including illegal dumping hotspots and the most common types of litter — and use the findings to inform future sanitation policy, including installing additional street bins, adjusting cleaning crew deployment and stepping up enforcement against illegal dumping. The district also intends to encourage local merchants to clean in front of their own shops and reduce single-use items, and to expand plogging into a resident-led cleanliness initiative at the dong level.
"Yeonmujang-gil is the soul of Seongsu-dong, shaped by the hands of master shoemakers, and the face of Seongdong that visitors from home and abroad come to see," District Mayor Yoo said. "Every small act of picking up litter is a golden touch that makes Seongdong shine. We will work together with our residents to build a clean Seongdong where people want to live their whole lives."
seouldream01@heraldcorp.com
