People are trash. Every year, we collectively produce around 57 million tons of plastic waste and litter. Almost half of it finds its way directly into nature, where plants and animals pay the price.
To put this into perspective: the equivalent of over 2000 garbage trucks full of plastic is dumped into the world’s oceans, rivers, and lakes every, single day. And it doesn’t stop there. Roughly 4.5 trillion (yes, TRILLION) discarded cigarette butts accumulate in streets, rivers, and oceans every year.
First prize would be for everyone to consume less, recycle more and stop littering. But by the time that happens, Earth may no longer be around. Thankfully, there are many people who refuse to sit around with a “not my rubbish, not my problem” mentality. They’re doing their bit to clean up after others and leave the world better than they found it.
In honor of these unsung heroes, We has compiled list of posts from the DeTrashed community. The following pictures show just how out of hand littering has become, and will hopefully inspire you to do your bit to save the planet while we still have time.
#1 So Wholesome!
#2 This Guy
#3 New Challenge
People collectively produce about 57 million tons of plastic waste and litter every year. And nature is paying the price. Around 20 million metric tons of waste finds its way directly into the environment, where plants, animals and other organisms suffer the consequences.
Smokers are the biggest culprits, with cigarette butts being the single most common piece of litter on earth. Roughly 4.5 trillion (yes, TRILLION) discarded cigarette butts accumulate in streets, rivers, and oceans every year. Not only are they an eyesore, but they’re causing massive harm to animals and the environment.
#4 You Too Can Keep The Earth Beautiful!
#5 This Guy Picked Up Some Litter
#6 Almost Yelled At Her For Picking Up Random Trash On A Walk Until She Said, “Where’s The Bin?”
One study notes that even unsmoked cellulose acetate filters can be toxic to some invertebrates and plants. But once a cigarette is smoked, the filter poses an increased chemical threat.
“Cigarettes contain over 7000 toxic chemicals,” reads the study, adding that some of these are readily leached into aquatic habitats.In the ocean, the cigarette butts can be lethal for certain fish and other marine life. They can also alter their growth and feeding habits.
“On land, littered cigarette butts can contaminate crops with nicotine, and reduce growth and alter productivity of common plants,” it warns.
#7 The Detroit Mower Gang’s Season Started. We Mow And Clean Up Abandoned Parks In Detroit. Join Us Every Other Wednesday Evening
#8 We Detrashed A Lake In Texas! 4,000 Pounds Of Beer Bottles And Beer Cans. With About 30 Scuba Divers And 4 Boats. Did It In About 4 Hours
#9 Please
Plastic is also a massive problem. Researchers warn that by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish (by weight) in the world’s oceans. According to the World Wildlife Fund, 1 million plastic bottles are sold every minute, but less than 50% are recycled. And that’s just the bottles.
National Geographic reports that less than 10% of all plastic gets recycled globally, leaving millions of tons to crowd landfills or leak into oceans and soils each year. The United Nations Environmental Program has also warned that, if things remain as they are, plastic waste is projected tonearly triple by 2060.
#10 Who Doesn’t Love A Clean Beach?
#11 Smokers… Pick Up Your Damn Butts!! This Guy Is A Hero!
#12 Took This In Saint Augustine, Florida Last Year. Thought You All Would Appreciate It
The 2026 Keep America Beautiful National Litter Studyreveals that litter is down 34% since 2020. But that 35 billion pieces still remain in the country’s parks, waterways, and public spaces. “Coastal litter is raising new concerns,” it notes.
The study found that 90% of Americans think litter is a problem. However, that isn’t stopping people from contributing to it. “75% of peopleadmit to littering within the last five years,” reports the Business Waste site. “Unsurprisingly,” it adds, “some of the people who litter the most are often smokers and those who eat fast food regularly.”
#13 Nepalese Climbers Removed 2.2 Tons Of Trash From Everest While The Tourists Were Away
#14 Think Global, Act Local
#15 Detrashed Beach
Business Waste also notes that there’s morelitter along waterways (25.9 billion pieces)thanroadways (23.7 billion pieces). Often, people don’t realize just how much harm they’re doing to the environment. Many go about their business, none the wiser. Laundry, for example, is something many people do without a second thought.
However, the site reveals that asingle laundry loadcan release700,000 synthetic microfibersinto our waterways. And those may later enter the ocean.
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#16 I Pick Up Trash When I’m Depressed Because It Nurtures Hope In Me. I Think I’m Going To Start A Club At My New Uni In Bellingham!
#17 Found $10 Picking Up Trash Tonight! It Does Pay To Save The Planet!
#18 Thought This Belonged Here
According to Business Waste, Indonesia and India are responsible for the most plastic entering the ocean. Together, they contribute more than the next seven countries combined. “The US is third in the list of countries that release plastic waste into the oceans,” it adds.
And here’s another horrifying stat from the site: “There are21,000 pieces of plasticpolluting our oceansfor every personin the world.”
#19 Akshar Forum School In Assam Accepts Plastic Waste As School Fees!
#20 On Average It Takes Me 30 Minutes And Under 0.3 Miles To Fill A 5 Gallon Bucket
#21 Not Your Typical Post But We Were Detrashing The Shores Of A Local Lake And Found These Freshly-Hatched Babies Wandering Towards The Road. Put All 9 We Found Near The Water And They All Jumped In On Their Own!
Each of us can play our part in saving the planet. But it involves not having a “not my problem” mentality. That means, even if you didn’t litter, you don’t need to sit back and do nothing. Avoiding single-use plastics, like straws, is just one way to reduce the amount of litter out there.
“The best way to avoid plastic ending up in our environment is to avoid having plastic waste altogether. Get your own set of cutlery, a mealbox, water bottle and coffee cup that you can take with you, wash and reuse every time,” suggests the EcoTree site. “And don’t forget to use a reusable shopping bag and cotton bags for vegetables and fruits when you go to the grocery store. It’s simple, small habits like this that make a big impact over time!”
#22 Today I Collected 8 Bags Of Garbage From Nature … We Try To Justify Our Ignorance In Front Of Ourselves And We Will Say “It’s Not Mine”, But We Are No Longer Entitled To That Nowadays. Nature Is Our Collective Responsibility, And This Sense Of Responsibility Motivates Me To Clean Up The Forest
#23 Proud My Buddy Does Something Like This Every Weekend Or So
#24 My Students Did Such An Amazing Job Cleaning Plumb Beach In Brooklyn. I’m So Proud Of Them
Another thing you can do today is to go outside and pick up the stuff others chucked on the ground. While it may sound gross, this includes cigarette butts, which as we noted before, are the most common pieces of litter.
“Don’t be afraid to tell your friends they shouldn’t throw their cigarette butts (or other litter) on the street or in the sewer,” advises the EcoTree team. “Spreading awareness is always the first step. It might feel uncomfortable to speak up, but nature doesn’t have a voice unless you do.”
#25 By Far My Most Ambitious Cleanup. Towed This Beast Almost Half A Mile Behind My Board To Get It Out Of The River
#26 What A Transition!
#27 Last Year My Son And I Started Fun Little Contests We Call Trash Fishing. Today Was Our Biggest Yet! Over 430 Lbs. Of Trash Removed From Our Waterways!
#28 For The Last 2 Years My Office Has Only Been Using Styrofoam Coffee Cups, Aside From Those Who Bring Their Own Mugs. I Finally Had Enough Of It And Bought Some Mugs, Spoons, Etc. I Know This Isn’t The Typical Content, But It’s Preventative Detrashing So I Figured It May Apply
#29 One Of Several Handfuls Of Gender Reveal Confetti At Our New Local Playground. Please Think Of Our Wildlife
#30 Divers Remove 8,000+ Lbs Of Trash In Lake Tahoe And Donner Lake. Hundreds Of Beer Cans, Stacks Of Tires, Gallons Of Fishing Line, Piles Of Plastics, Mounds Of Glass And This Is Only The Beginning. Our Clean Up The Lake Team Has Been Working All Summer On These Cleanup Projects!
#31 The Real Trash Are The People That Threw This Trash Out Of Their Car Windows
#32 Four Giant Piles Of Trash Later, I Smell Like Beer And Gunpowder But We Have A Clean Park!
#33 My Boyfriend Wrote A Paper On How Superworms And Mealworms Can Digest Styrofoam Into Biodegradable Waste At A Fast Rate. We Expanded It Into A Project At School This Year. This Is A Farm That I Started A Week Ago. It’s Simple And Low Maintenance
#34 My Sister And I Cleaned Up Every Park In Our Little Country Town. From 8am – 1 Pm. Help Save Our Earth, She’s The Most Beautiful Thing About Living Here And Helping Others Is Just So Worth It In The Long Haul. My Sister Is The Best Person To Clean With. She’s Just As Beautiful As This Earth
#35 4ocean Does A Lot For The Environment And Has Some Really Cool Bracelets, Check Them Out!
#36 The Ocean Cleanup Project’s Biggest Detrasher Of The Ocean Is Now Finally Catching Plastic, From One-Ton Ghost Nets To Tiny Microplastics!
#37 Me And My Group Cleaned Up Part Of This Island In The San Blas, Panama
#38 Making Things Easy At Our Beach
#39 Online Versus Reality
#40 The Trash Fishing Crew Pulled 142 Lbs Of Trash Out Of The Detroit River
#41 Our 1088 Kg Detrashing Of The Cook River
#42 First Detrashing With Dog And GF, Done!
#43 Had A Friend Complain About Straw Bans Saying That They’re Not Even A Real Litter/Marine Debris Issue. So I Did A Quick 10 Minute Sweep Of 300ft Of Shoreline To Prove Them Wrong
#44 1st Cosplay Cleanup Successfully Completed Today With 250kg Worth Of Trash From A Sri Lankan Beach
#45 My So Dedicated Her 30th Birthday To Cleaning 30 Beaches In Wales
#46 It Works!! 5 Months Ago I Spent 30 Minutes Cleaning This Spot. I Haven’t Spent More Than 2 Minutes On It Since, But Yesterday Zero Because It Was Already Clean
#47 Me On The Ohio River Trash Cleanup With Living Lands And Waters. During The Week Of Cleanup, 40,724 Pounds Of Trash Was Collected! #trashtag
#48 34 Volunteers Picked Up 7,000 Lbs Of Trash In Portland, Or Yesterday
#49 My Son And I Won The Award For “Most Trash Collected” At The Trash Fishing Contest. We Pulled 60lbs Of Trash And Over-Filled Our 55 Gallon Barrel
#50 Had A Lot Of Fun Cleaning Up This Pile Yesterday
#51 Biggest Neighborhood Polluter Is Our Local News Paper. Free Weekly Mailers That No One Wants. Piled In The Gutters And Drains
#52 It Ain’t Much But Still
#53 Sometimes Trash Tells A Deeper Story
#54 Lost My Job Today, Made An Impromptu Trip To The Lake Which Turned Into My First Impromptu Lake Detrashing!
#55 My Third Time De-Trashing The River In Sailly-Sur-La-Lys, France
#56 I’ve Been Removing Love Locks Made Of Trash From The Brooklyn Bridge
#57 Detrashed My Son’s Bus Stop With Him This Morning! He’s Only 4, Gotta Teach Em Young To Not Be A Litter Bug!
#58 It Paid To Clean Up Today (It’s Real!!)
#59 Detrashed An Ever Growing Pile Of Garbage At Our Favourite Beach In Pei, Canada 🇨🇦
#60 Here In Egypt, 3x1000l Bags Filled From A 100m3 Area. One Day At A Time, Thanks For The Motivation U/Prankster-Natra
#61 If Anybody Is Nearby And Can Make It, This Could Be Really Great
#62 1 Hour Night (+10 Kg), 1st Detrashing Ever! Thank You All Of You, You Are My Inspiration For A Better World! Greetings From Mexico
#63 This Major Music Festival Gives You One Coin For Foods And Drinks When You Hand In 25 Trays Or 50 Plastic Cups! Great Initiave!
#64 Every Day At 9am, You Can Find Activists Cleaning The Streets Of Lebanon Because The Government Wont Do It!
#65 Will Ferrell Out For A Little Detrashing, It Appears
#66 I’ve Been Detrashing My Town For A Few Months Now And Decided To Upgrade My Set Up So I Got One Of These Garbo Grabber Trash Baggers
#67 3 Vehicles And 600+tires From A Creek!
#68 Detrashed 1 Block In My Philadelphia Neighborhood. Filled 4 Contractor Bags!
#69 Massive Cigarette Butt Cleanup Around Civic Center Park – Denver, Co
#70 Paws On Plastic! Random Acts Of Green!
#71 In France Two Days Ago, #fillthebottle Challenge Was Created, In Which You Would Fill Empty Plastic Bottles Of Cigarette Stubs. It Has Gone Viral On Twitter & French Social Media (Not My Picture)
#72 My Work Team Did A Trashtag Challenge During Our Lunch Break In Boston
#73 874 Lbs Of Trash Picked Up!! Awesome Event At Ferry Point Park In The Bronx!
#74 We’ve Been Finding 10+ Year Old Rubbish In The Woodland Undergrowth. I Found A Glass Lucozade Bottle, Which Stopped Being Manufactured In 1983
#75 Spent An Hour Detrashing An Off-Road Area In Kuwait
#76 Beach Cleanup Day In Akita, Japan Was A Hit, But We Still Have A Ways To Go! Over Thirty Bags Collected In 3 Hours. Planning To Come Back In April—hoping We’ll Have A Chance To Totally Detrash It!
#77 Me And My Dad De-Trashed A Country Road While It Was Closed For Resurfacing! We Filled The Boot Of Our Car
#78 May 11, 2019: #trashtag 8-Km Hike For The Environment (MT Pleasant, Moore Ravine, Evergreen Brickworks, Don River Valley, Riverdale Farm) In Toronto, CA
#79 In Poland, We Have A Long Weekend Right Now. We’ve Decided To Do Something With Our Local Forrest. Szczecin, Poland
#80 Hit The Mother Lode!
#81 From Mexico City, My Second Detrashing And I’m Really Proud! 10 Kg For A Battle Where Our Planet Must Be Saved, If We Unite, Ww Can Do It! Thanks To All Detrashers In The World!
#82 150 Lbs Of Wet Blankets, Towels And Other Discarded Stuff Hauled 300 Yards Up From The Beach
#83 The Ocean Cleanup Project Working Slightly As Intended, More Mods Coming Up
#84 One Person Trying To Make A Difference, 5,307 Ponds Of Rope Removed From Bay Of Fundy Shoreline, Nova Scotia, Canada
#85 Trying To Keep Chicago Clean!
#86 Am Lovin’ The #trashtag Trend. We Went Out Yesterday To Pick Up Some Trash, And Didn’t Get Within 100 Yards Of Our House Before We Filled Up 2 Trash Bags! Thinking About Adopting This Road To Keep It Clean Year Round
#87 A Local Beach Clean Up In Scotland! An Event I Organised For My 20th Birthday
#88 Please Don’t Set Helium Balloons Free. Cleaning Up This Morning In Broswere Bay, NY
#89 I Didn’t Plan On Doing This But I Found A Box Today At The Beach (Sidi Ifni, Morocco). Anything Helps, Right?
#90 If Your Dog Poops In The Woods, Please Don’t Make It An Immortal Plastic Landmark Out Of It
#91 A Good Boy And I Picking Up All Of The Garbage That Everyone Accidentally Dropped At The Beach
#92 A Detrashing Of The Western Shore Of Kejimkujik Seaside National Park In Nova Scotia!
#93 Travelling Home On My Trusty Scooter And Managed To Fill A Lidl’s Bag Full Of Rubbish, I Then Found A Bin, Emptied The Bag And Managed To Fill It Up Again. Surrey, England
#94 Got Inspired By You Guys And Just Picked Up Some trash I Found On A Path Next To A Supermarket
#95 Everyone Can Help, Can Be A Hero
#96 Got Tired Of Driving Past This Mess
#97 As Promised, Just Finished Our 2nd #trashtag Challenge. Every Little Action Can Have A Huge Impact, Don’t Let This Challenge Die!!
#98 First Tip From Mother Earth! Found A Plastic Baggie Half Way In The Sewer Drain With Some Cash, No House Around To Give It Back To. Cleaning Up Pays Off!
#99 The Wife And I Just Bought Some Land Where The Previous Owners Were Semi-Hoarders And Locals Were Dumping. One Dumpster And Ten Pickup Loads To The Dump Down. It’s A Start
#100 If You’ve Already Carried It From Denmark To Germany, How Much Harder Are The Remaining 5 Meters To The Next Trash Can?
#101 Started Small – Detrashed A Bus Stop, 2 Bags Of Trash In 30 Minutes
#102 One Liter Of Cigs, Officially Out Of The Environment!
#103 First Detrashing Behind My Apartment Building. I Barely Made A Dent
#104 On Election Day, I Was Cleaning Up These Railroad Tracks When A Documentarian Asked Me For An Interview; And Thus We Have This Photo
#105 All In All, About 15 Bags Of Trash (Including Half A Lawn Chair!) Removed From The Chattahoochee River! (GA)
#106 Im At A Local P Event, And For Every Cigerette Picked Up, You Can Exchange It For In Game Currency At A 1:1 Ratio
#107 2-Minute Job (Literally) In Neukölln, Berlin, Germany. There Was Even A Box For Collection Waiting For Me
#108 Was Told This Should Go Here. Cleaned This Area Up
#109 From The Woods Where I Walk My Dog In Ireland. These Bags Are Huge Wheelie Bin Sacks. I Couldn’t Believe How Much I Found
#110 I’ve Been Silent Here Until Now But Here Is All The Trash I Picked Up In An Office Park Not Too Long Ago! I Plan To Head Back There Soon And Clean Up More
#111 2 Hours Detrash 1% Of The Moron Playa, Dominican Republic
#112 Day Two Of Picking Up Cigarette Butts I See On My Walks To And From Class
#113 Lake Nearby Update. Today There Were Few Of Us. Perfect Day Again. Photos In Comment
#114 My 3yo Daughter Said “Oh No Trash” So We Picked Up This In A 15-Step Walk Through A Parking Lot
#115 Kicking Myself For Not Doing This Sooner! I Go Almost Everyday So I Should Have The Area Cleaned In No Time! Very Satisfying To Contribute
#116 The Same Playground I Posted Earlier. There Is A Trash Bin 5 Meters From The Picnic Table
#117 The Best Part Of This Beach Cleanup Was That So Many Different People Came To Help Us, Whether For One Straw Or For One Hour. In Bali, Indonesia!
#118 I Just Recently Started Skating Again And Today I Cleaned Up This Skate Park. This Was The Worst Corner With Lots Of McDonald’s Trash
#119 Here Are The Numbers Of Cigarette Butts Exchanged For Ingame Currency More Then 6000 Butts Were Exchanged. After A Final Sweep Of The Event Site, I Found Under 30 Butts
#120 Went To The Park With My Dog And Picked Up All The Trash I Came By 🙂
#121 If You Can’t Make It On A Big Scale, Let’s Start Small With The Easiest Way To Keep This Going. Make It A Habit Rather Than A Trend! I Live In Malaysia And I Am Trying My Best To Educate Other Locals To Make This A Habit, Not Easy But It’s Necessary. The Next Step Is Recycling. #trashtag
#122 Taken At Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo TX
#123 Cleaning Up The Local Wooded Area To Find That Someone Threw Out A Bench??
#124 Stolen. Loved It
#125 Took Me A Bit To Get It; Once I Did I Realized It Belongs Here
#126 Inspired By This Sub, I Began My Detrash Journey Today
