A few weeks ago we went to Terschelling for our Full Moon Winter Weekend. On Sunday we had a beach clean-up. In 2,5 hours we’ve picked up 125 kg (!) of trash from the beach. We picked up light bulbs, plastic bags, my little pony brushes, a fridge(?), fishing nets etc. The energy of the group was high, we did a good deed together and that felt good. I started looking on the internet to see what else we could do and I came across pictures of the #trashtag challenge.
The #Trashtag Challenge
The challenge inspires people to go to locations covered in garbage, pick up the trash, and post before and after pictures on social media. So far there are more than 29,000 posts tagged on Instagram and countless volunteers have cleaned up parks, roads and beaches around the world.
It seems that this post kicked things off: “Here is a new #challenge for all you bored teens. “Take a photo of an area that needs some cleaning or maintenance, then take a photo after you have done something about it, and post it.”
Luckily not just teens are picking up trash. Over the past week more and more people started to share the most noteworthy trash cleanup photo.
The #trashtag challenge is awesome:
- It gets people involved in their community;
- It brings awareness of the amount of waste created and not dealt with properly;
- It takes people out into nature — a significant benefit considering we all spend a lot of time inside, being inactive and staring at our screens;
- It brings people together;
- It makes people feel good.
The #trashtag challenge shows we can make the world a better place and that we have the power to make a difference in the world. Hopefully, the success of this challenge will inspire other positive viral trends in the future.
Let’s make our coming hikes into #trashtag expeditions. Are you in?