Trashtag

Submission 18,204

About

#trashtag (also #detrashed) is a hashtag used to catalog participants of Trashtag challenge, which involves volunteering to collect trash from outdoor locations. Originally launched in 2015, the hashtag gained popularity in March 2019 following a viral Facebook post, with multiple "before" and "after" photographs of cleaned-up places posted by the challenge participants on Reddit, Twitter and other social networks.

Origin

On September 15th, 2015, ecological activist and Steven Reinhold posted a blog entry on Teton Gravity Research website,^[1] describing his recent activities cleaning up various wild locations such as Yosemite Valley and announcing the launch of #trashtag project. The post called others to follow Reinhold's example by traveling to wildlife locations, cleaning them up from trash and posting the results to Instagram. Additionally, participants of the challenge were eligible to win gear sponsored by UCO Gear which Reinhold was an ambassador of.^[2]

What is #trashtag? It’s a movement. It’s campers, hikers, outdoorspeople everywhere joining in and committing to removing trash from beautiful places. Trash has no place in the wilderness, and we are committed to removing 10,000 pieces of trash by October 2016. Join us, LET’S MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Spread

On March 5th, 2019, Facebook^[3] user Byron Román posted a "before" and "after" photograph of a location cleaned up by an unknown man, challenging "bored teens" to collect trash in littered places. The post gained over 91,000 likes and 300,000 shares in one week.

On March 9th, Redditor^[11] Baxxo25 submitted a cropped screenshot of the post to /r/wholesomememes subreddit, supporting the challenge idea, with the submission gaining over 141,000 upvotes in three days. In the comments, several users proposed various ideas for the challenge name, with user FatalShart suggesting the name #trashtag.^[12]

On the same day, Facebook^[4] community We Don't Deserve This Planet posted a challenge with a similar photo combination, which gained over 18,000 likes and 20,000 shares in three days. Redditor^[5] shrestaz posted the photo to /r/pics subreddit, titling their post "#trashtag seems to be trending. This one's from Nepal 🇳🇵". The post gained over 139,000 upvotes in three days.

Following the shrestaz' post, the #trashtag hashtag gained significant popularity on Reddit, with numerous highly-upvoted posts using the hashtag posted to /r/pics^[6]^[7] and /r/detrashed^[8] subreddits.

On March 10th, 2019, Redditor agrady262 posted an inquiry about the challenge to /r/OutOftheLoop subreddit.^[9]

At least one of the photographs posted as a part of the challenge was later proven to have been faked. The submission disproving the faked post gained over 34,300 upvotes on /r/quityourbullshit subreddit.^[10]