Finally, a viral internet trend that won’t send you to the hospital à la the Tide Pod Challenge or Cinnamon Challenge — unless you need an updated tetanus booster.
The “Trashtag Challenge” has been sweeping social media and encouraging people to go outside and step up when they see litter lying around. All participants need to do is find a litter-filled area, clean it up and share the before and after snaps on social media using the hashtag #trashtag.
The campaign was initially launched in 2015 by UCO, a company that makes outdoor gear, and the goal was for people to pick up 10,000 pieces of trash by October 2016. However, in March of this year, the trend started to become popular again, and more and more people are embracing the hashtag.
Before and after
Thanks to the popularity of the #trashtag on social media, some users even spent their weekends picking up litter while on trips and even around their own neighborhoods.
Some anti-litter bugs even shared why they found the hashtag to be so important. “We can be better than this,” one person shared. “It’s the only outdoors we have. We all use it for many different things but it is the only one we have. So let’s all do our part and treat it with respect. Let’s pick up after ourselves and then pick up extra. It only takes a few minutes of your time to pick up something that’ll far outlast us humans if left alone. We’re the ones who… can pass it along to those who will come after us in better shape than we found it.”
