We recently had the pleasure of sharing a really positive and useful social media challenge for once, the #Trashtag Challenge. Instead of the usual dumb and damaging crap like tide pods and people walking around blindfolded, this challenge encourages people to go out with their gloves and some trash bags, and clean up a polluted area.
Since our previous post a few days ago, the challenge has spread even further and gone truly global. Perhaps this is how we eventually manage to do something about climate change before it's too late? It turns out that we can foster a community spirit, get off our butts and make positive change for our environment, we just need to be challenged to post pics of it on social media. Problem solved!
Scroll down to check out even more inspiring pics of people getting their hands dirty and cleaning up, and let us know what you think in the comments!
This post may include affiliate links.
Not only did they pick up the heaps of trash, they planted trees to restore the environment!
The #Trashtag challenge offers a refreshing new take on the social media challenge, with many previous iterations simply being a platform for people to show off while doing useless or destructive acts. The one most referenced is the Tidepod challenge, which caused much moral outrage and disbelief over the stupidity of those who took part.
The was also the cinnamon challenge, where people had to film themselves eating a spoon of powdered cinnamon, which can be dangerous if inhaled.
And of course there was the hot water challenge, where kids are encouraged to either drink boiling water through a straw, or pour the boiling water on a friend. One child died as a result of this challenge, and it makes you wonder what kind of people come up with these idiotic ideas that endanger the most vulnerable in our society.
Our kids from the Karavia Children Village rocked the #trashtagchallenge yesterday! What a great action and exemple for the neighborhood
One of the biggest #trashtag of 2019. Manila Bay Philippines clean up drive.
I am so impressed. You made the world - and the beach - such a better place!
While it may seem new, the viral trend was originally started as the 'Trashtag Project' back in 2015 by UCO, a company that makes outdoor gear. The initial goal of the project was to collect 10,000 pieces of trash by October 2016.
Outdoor website snews reported it at the time, writing "The UCO #TrashTag Project was conceived by UCO People ambassador, Steven Reinhold, during a period of guilt after his receipt from a self-indulgent shopping spree flew out the window.Haunted by this inadvertent littering episode, Reinhold vowed to gather 100 pieces of trash during his road trip – and he did. Returning home from his adventure, Reinhold pitched an expansion of his vision to the UCO team, and the movement began."
This woman has dedicated the last year and a half of her life to cleaning up polluted coasts, way before #trashtag was a thing. Currently, she is in Central America continuing her efforts. More people like this deserve recognition
While the original #trashtag challenge was a moderate success, used over 20,000 times since 2015, it really took off this month after Arizona man Byron Roman posted photos of Algerian Drici Tani Younes. The first one showed Younes surrounded by garbage and then a second one had him standing in the same place behind nine filled trash bags. Roman suggested this would be the perfect “new challenge for all you bored teens,” and it simply took off from there. Now it's a truly global phenomenon!
This #trashtag is really kicking off here in Nepal. I wish this doesn't die out and become a normal day-to-day thing
Living Lands & Waters cleaned up 14,353lbs of trash from the Mississippi River (in Memphis) just yesterday!
I can't change the world but I totally changed mine
Okeanos Foundation for the Sea doing our part for #trashtag
The #TrashTag Challenge is an excellent reminder of how cleanliness can enable communities and the environment to Rise.
Watch how Mahindra employees came together for a cleaner country here
before & after
#trashtag challenge is one of the social media hashtags worth time and effort.
It urges people to pick a place filled with litter, clean it up, and post before and after pictures.
Volunteers have made beaches, parks and roads trash-free while raising awareness of the quantity of plastic litter we produce. Here is mine - Manchester's Mirabel Street. During strong winds and after events at Manchester's Arena our little corner gets a full blast of litter droped by passing by people.
I hope in no time we will transform Mirabel Street into the cleanest street in Manchester
Everyday hundreds of youth are cleaning up the country. This #trashtag challenge if continued in great magnitude can really help solve hundreds of environmental problems. This picture is from the students of highschool named KMC from Kathmandu, Nepal.
Did our part today for #trashtag while offroading in the mountains of California
I wanted to give back to the Filipino community who has been so kind to me; I spent 6 hours at a “local’s” beach and cleaned it up a bit. I know it’s not a lot, but It’s a small way of saying “thank you.” #trashtag
One boombox, one dog bed and nine trash bags later and the woods next to my apartment building look a hundred times better. the top photos are the view from my kitchen window and now I no longer have to look at trash!
I use to clean up trash on my 1.5 mile walk home from work when I was younger. I use to have bags and bags... also would find really interesting things by the bridge where people dump things. I wish everyone lived as though #trashtage was just a way of life, it would be so much better.
I heard #trashtag is getting popular. Kiev, Ukraine
Tried to do something better then nothing
Hope more environment conscious people join this challenge for better tomorrow
Your example will change the way everyone looks making a change - you are heroes!
Cleaning up homeless camps! #trashtag 260 kgs, only took about an hour!
This is not cleaning up the environment, this is deliberately messing with someone's home, basically. Clean up the garbage, leave the tent alone, ffs.
How cruel, to delight in the dismantling of homeless peoples' possessions and throwing them away. His grin and posing is just awful. By all means, clean up the environment. But don't do it at the expense of those who have no option but to sleep rough. Disposing of possessions and continued dispossesion, is what keeps people in a cycle of poverty and homelessness
For all the people denouncing his attempts to help clean up, I recommend you check out one of your local homeless camps and see how respectful they are about where they’re camping. Also, since you’re so concerned, consider allowing them to camp out in your backyard, or even your living room and see how well that works out.
If you have such a problem with them, maybe you should do something to help.
Load More Replies... Lucky him, unlike our homeless camps locally, his didn’t seem to contain any 5 gallon buckets of human waste.
Dear morons- this was an abandoned homeless camp, not somewhere someone was living- stop being so stupid ffs.
I was going to say the same thing!! In our corner of the world, a lot of homeless people camp along one of our urban rivers - when the river floods, the people don't always have enough time to get everything out, and the debris gets caught in the trees and brush and whatnot. That has to be cleared out by someone!
Load More Replies... Yes, I am sure homeless camps must be quite bad, are you perhaps the first to think of it !!!
We got inspired by all the other trashtag posts. Cleaned up a 3 mile section on our local trail
Three miles is a lot of territory - what a gift to your neighborhood!
The KU Canterbury house decided to spend our spring break picking up trash on the streets of St. Louis!
What an amazing change! I wonder where all those shoes came from.
What a difference! Thanks for taking the time to make a difference!
Before and after. Makeup and clothes dumped near Moston Brook, now cleaned up
A pile of bricks by this path behind my local Walmart always bothered me. A couple years ago I got bored and made it less sh**ty. #Trashtag proves we can make the world a more beautiful place
It's so much better, that was a lot of work! Thanks for what you do!
Horrible mess we make, i live near a coastal town and quite often we will take the dogs for a long walk along the coast and take some bags with us and pick up anything we see, the amount you can bag up in a 60 minute walk is so scary, we regularly find old crisp packets from the 60's and 70's that haven't even faded yet, it's abhorrent.
The water brings in most of the trash along the rivers I live near, granted, where a lot of homeless encampments are, so maybe the coast too?
Load More Replies...
Virginia has the biggest trashiest roadsides. Just hope everyone else is doing it for the trend. Would be nice to notice there's no trash on the freeways
River banks and parks seem like a good place to clean up. I dunno if I would trust the safety of cleaning up the side of 95.
Load More Replies...
From the intro: "Perhaps this is how we eventually manage to do something about climate change before it's too late?" No, individual efforts would be a tiny drop in the bucket. It is major infrastructure change that needs to happen. Fixing it will require government action. Don't perpetuate the myth that "personal responsibility" will solve anything. How would personal actions change this fact?: "Carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. The cement industry is one of two largest producers of carbon dioxide (CO2), creating up to 5% of worldwide man-made emissions of this gas, of which 50% is from the chemical process and 40% from burning fuel."
Well done everyone for the super job 😊 I just wish people would completely stop throwing rubbish on the ground !
Went down to Costa Rica in 2005 and it was the cleanest place I've ever seen. And they didn't even have garbage removal in most places. The only place I saw with any trash were the super touristy places. It's cultural. In N Mpls, I would walk up and down my block and could pick up half a bag of garbage on any given day (1 1/2 blocks): dirty diapers, hypodermic needles, dirty underwear, and mainly fast food bags.
Me too! It really makes me smile to see people caring for our beautiful planet 😊
Load More Replies...
This reminds me of a radio show i heard once. There were two people who would go out somewhere in florida on kayaks and would pick up trash. Apparently, one day, the husband (as they were a couple) was out and hadn't come back in a while. When he got back to wherever they were living, he said something along the lines of: "i need a bigger canoe." His craft was so loaded down with trash he could barely paddle back. And the worst part is: there was still more. So these people organised a group to go out on the water and pick up trash. They had collected somewhere in the range of 10,000 pounds of trash over the span of just two years.
Great job clearing up the area, but will that stuff be sorted into different recyclable and non-recyclable waste or just end up as a waste island in the ocean?
If you're in the Seattle area, look into Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. I have done river cleanups on the Duwamish River with them. They provide kayaks and we take tons of stuff out. They are a great group to participate with. https://pugetsoundkeeper.org/
I have a question ---------- where is all this trash going now? Is it going to end up back in our rivers and the ocean? :'( Sooo glad people are doing this! People in my area (NW MO) "adopt" hiways and keep them clean.
Let's hope people see the clean ares and take their junk home to their garbage !!!
It's a Dissapointing thought that the people we are trying to reach ,have a totally different mind set. I work alongside many people who thinks it's not their job,and if we picked it up then people would loose there jobs
I adhor littering. Always have always will. Looks like a lot of education is needed. Fortunately live where there is more respect in general for our surroundings.
Horrible mess we make, i live near a coastal town and quite often we will take the dogs for a long walk along the coast and take some bags with us and pick up anything we see, the amount you can bag up in a 60 minute walk is so scary, we regularly find old crisp packets from the 60's and 70's that haven't even faded yet, it's abhorrent.
The water brings in most of the trash along the rivers I live near, granted, where a lot of homeless encampments are, so maybe the coast too?
Load More Replies... Virginia has the biggest trashiest roadsides. Just hope everyone else is doing it for the trend. Would be nice to notice there's no trash on the freeways
River banks and parks seem like a good place to clean up. I dunno if I would trust the safety of cleaning up the side of 95.
Load More Replies... From the intro: "Perhaps this is how we eventually manage to do something about climate change before it's too late?" No, individual efforts would be a tiny drop in the bucket. It is major infrastructure change that needs to happen. Fixing it will require government action. Don't perpetuate the myth that "personal responsibility" will solve anything. How would personal actions change this fact?: "Carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. The cement industry is one of two largest producers of carbon dioxide (CO2), creating up to 5% of worldwide man-made emissions of this gas, of which 50% is from the chemical process and 40% from burning fuel."
Well done everyone for the super job 😊 I just wish people would completely stop throwing rubbish on the ground !
Went down to Costa Rica in 2005 and it was the cleanest place I've ever seen. And they didn't even have garbage removal in most places. The only place I saw with any trash were the super touristy places. It's cultural. In N Mpls, I would walk up and down my block and could pick up half a bag of garbage on any given day (1 1/2 blocks): dirty diapers, hypodermic needles, dirty underwear, and mainly fast food bags.
Me too! It really makes me smile to see people caring for our beautiful planet 😊
Load More Replies... This reminds me of a radio show i heard once. There were two people who would go out somewhere in florida on kayaks and would pick up trash. Apparently, one day, the husband (as they were a couple) was out and hadn't come back in a while. When he got back to wherever they were living, he said something along the lines of: "i need a bigger canoe." His craft was so loaded down with trash he could barely paddle back. And the worst part is: there was still more. So these people organised a group to go out on the water and pick up trash. They had collected somewhere in the range of 10,000 pounds of trash over the span of just two years.
Great job clearing up the area, but will that stuff be sorted into different recyclable and non-recyclable waste or just end up as a waste island in the ocean?
If you're in the Seattle area, look into Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. I have done river cleanups on the Duwamish River with them. They provide kayaks and we take tons of stuff out. They are a great group to participate with. https://pugetsoundkeeper.org/
I have a question ---------- where is all this trash going now? Is it going to end up back in our rivers and the ocean? :'( Sooo glad people are doing this! People in my area (NW MO) "adopt" hiways and keep them clean.
Let's hope people see the clean ares and take their junk home to their garbage !!!
It's a Dissapointing thought that the people we are trying to reach ,have a totally different mind set. I work alongside many people who thinks it's not their job,and if we picked it up then people would loose there jobs
I adhor littering. Always have always will. Looks like a lot of education is needed. Fortunately live where there is more respect in general for our surroundings.
