The Trash Challenge is the latest campaign to take social media platforms by storm. Participants are taking vocal action against environmental pollution by cleaning up and telling others about it with their social media accounts. Photo: Marwan Naamani/dpa
You may have noticed that social media users all over the world have started taking selfies with piles of rubbish, usually with shots before and after cleaning it all up.
It’s the Trash Challenge, the latest campaign to take social media platforms by storm. And undoubtedly it’s a positive one. Participants are taking vocal action against environmental pollution by cleaning up and telling others about it with their social media accounts.
A search for Twitter or Instagram now shows countless selfies of people holding up bags of rubbish. Streets and beaches in Nepal, Mexico, Nigeria and the US have apparently already been cleared of carelessly discarded waste through this campaign. The social media storm even appears to be motivating teenagers to pick up litter after school.
One of the first posts on this topic, posted on Reddit earlier in March, calls on people to post pictures of areas filled with litter, then post another when it’s all tidied up.
Last summer Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton showed social networks how he could help free a completely filthy beach of rubbish. In the video, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, he says he wants to show where all the plastic thrown away ends up: “Think about it.”
The latest trend echoes the plogging movement, which last year saw thousands picking up litter while jogging. Plogging – which combines the word jogging with the Swedish word “plocka,” to pick – saw countless joggers arm themselves with rubbish bags.
Groups dedicated to plogging popped up around the world, with joggers being reported seen stooping for litter from Britain and Germany to India and Malaysia.
1 comments
I so impressed about how many people are taking pictures posed with plastic trash. That will greatly help emphasize to others to participate in this supporting this cause.