Innovative sports band concept lets you carry a tong around for plogging

The new year means new fitness goals for a lot of people. Since we’re in the second month of 2023, we probably have a lot of drops from those who chose exercising as their goal. We may have some latecomers who are still looking for the right kind of thing. If you want to lose some calories and save mother earth as well, you can try out this thing called plogging where you get to run or jog and pick up trash along the way. And if you need a device that will recognize your “eco running”, here’s a concept.

Designer: Fountain Studio

JIP-UP is a concept for a band that you can wear that will detect and track your plogging adventure and at the same time, give you a tool to help pick up the trash that you find along the way. Of course, there’s also a connected app where all your data will be recorded and stored, including the time you spent eco-plogging away and the distance that you covered as you walked, jogged, or ran across the trail that you chose, whether it’s a good place to run or there’s a lot of litter that needs to be picked up along the way.

The device looks like the typical running bands that you wear on your arm or alternatively, your waist. What makes it different is there’s a small pocket attached to it made from PVC where you can place stuff in it. Specifically, you can place the JIP-UP tong with which you can pick up the litter that you see on your route and either place them in a bag that you bring with you or look for the nearest trash bin in the area. After your plogging mission, you get to share an icon badge if you were able to complete your target, more for bragging rights.

While plogging may not have made it yet in the mainstream (I only learned about while writing about this device concept!), it’s actually an interesting thing that we can try. And if you wouldn’t mind carrying around a tong in a pouch that kind of looks like a sanitary napkin attached to your sport band, then this would be an interesting device to have around for all your plogging exercises.