'Trashtag' is the latest viral challenge and it won't send you to the emergency room

Hope Schreiber
·Writer
The viral “Trashtag Challenge” has inspired people to help clean up litter. (Photo: Twitter)
The viral “Trashtag Challenge” has inspired people to help clean up litter. (Photo: Twitter)

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.

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Double TAP for more amazing facts"es 👌 . -👥 TAG a friend to show this💡 -🔔TURN ON POST NOTIFICATION -✔FOLLOW for more… – . . . . . #fact #facts #didyouknow #instafacts #factsdaily #trashtag #dailyfacts #facts💯 #factz

A post shared by TheScientist🚀 (@thescientistfacts) on Mar 10, 2019 at 8:54am PDT

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We can do BETTER, people! 😢 Gosh dang ittttt! — We CANNOT just rep our fashionable reusable bags + water bottles + thrifted clothes and drive by scenes like this because it’s less convenient or comfortable to pick up someone else’s leftovers 👏🏼 — Picked up two USED tampons, 5 styrofoam to-go food containers, about a dozen paper plates, 5 or 6 sheets of paper, 10 canned sodas, and more JUST from the overflow from our neighbors + our nearest dumpster alone… — We were all placed here on this earth for a divine purpose 💡 and our collective purpose is to make this world a BETTER place after us being here, not to contaminate through our instant gratifications and quick + easy lifestyles for future generations to cope with — Some 🗑 tips I have : • Tie your trash bag TIGHT so crows or other birds can’t come thru and terrorize 🐦 • When throwing away trash, make sure it’s 💯 being held by the dumpster and not overflowing from the top (often times leading to spills) • Loosen up your ego and do what you need — even if it’s gross or uncomfortable— to keep this home of ours CLEAN Would you dump trash all over your ‘real’ home? 🤔 — We only have two homes: our bodies and our mother 🌎🙏🏼 KEEP THEM HEALTHY KEEP THEM HAPPY KEEP THEM BEAUTIFUL ♻️♻️♻️ — #ecochic #trashtag #sustainabilityissexy

A post shared by m a d i n o r w o o d (@wanderingwellnesss) on Mar 11, 2019 at 1:37pm PDT

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#trashtag

A post shared by La Rata Superior (@la.rata.superior) on Mar 11, 2019 at 12:59pm PDT

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.”

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