#TrashTag Challenge | What's it all about? and why should I be doing it?

The #TrashTag Challange

It's been about 2 weeks since the craze of the #trashtag challenge stormed social media and the impact has been lasting. I wanted to create this post, for one, to continue the discussion of pollution within our environment and, second, to inform others what exactly the #trashtag challenge is and where it came from.

#Trashtag Challenge, What's it all about?

The #TrashTag Challenge is a viral challenge that captured the internet in early March 2019. This is not a new challenge! It was created back in 2015 by a UCO Gear ambassador, Steven Reinhold. UCO Gear is acompany who sells high quality outdoor essentials. 

Reinhold had an experience where, on a road trip, he accidentally littered and felt real guilt for doing so. After that day, as retribution, decided to pick up 100 pieces of trash. He wrote a blog post where he talked about his experience and encouraged others to do the same.

It's purpose was to encourage people to clean up litter they see throughout their daily lives - with a focus on outdoor recreational areas such as trails, parks, and beaches. They wanted to encourage people to hold themselves accountable for the cleanliness of our planet.

As the challenge resurfaced it caught the attention of new stations, Instagram and twitter. SO I'm sure you've heard about it at some point.

Why should you participate in the #Trashtag challenge?

As I dove into the craze of this challenge, I read a few articles here and there and one that stood out to me was one posted by a blogger named AUDIE. He wrote about the importance of this viral internet challenge and how it's promoting something positive online and not dangerous.

To participate in this online challenge simply find a heavily littered area clean it up, taking before and after pictures on social media with the #trashtag challenge. Be sure to encourage others to do the same and bring awareness to the importance of trash cleanup and accountability.

Still need some inspiration?

AUDIE did his own research and discovered that 40 teenagers in Norway were inspired by this challenge and spent a week cleaning up a beach. They collected 27,335 pounds of trash within that week.

This is an amazing example of how polluted our earth is! 40 teens collected that much trash in a week! Imagine if everyone on the planet participated in this - that would be a whole lot of trash! This is the type of challenge that needs to go viral more often. 

As AUDIE wrote about in his blog, there are so many dangerous and plain stupid challenges online. This is the time to make an impact and a positive one at that!

Maybe you can't outdo them, but you can still make an impact! Do this challenge and post it on instagram, tagging me and using the hashtag. You can also post it on Twitter and tag me as well. Cant wait to see you do the challenge!