In #Trashtag posts, participants usually share what pair of cleanup photos?

In #Trashtag posts, participants usually share before-and-after cleanup photos. The typical post shows a littered place first, followed by the same area after volunteers have removed the rubbish, often with the collected bags visible in the second image.

The challenge grew from an outdoor cleanup idea associated with Steven Reinhold, who began using the hashtag in 2015 after an episode of littering during a road trip. The campaign became internationally prominent in March 2019, when Byron Roman reposted images of a heavily littered roadside in Algeria alongside a dramatic cleaned-up result.

#Trashtag is more than a transformation meme: its purpose is to encourage people to pick up litter in public spaces and document the result. Cleanups have taken place on beaches, in cities, mountains, rivers and even underwater. A common mistake is to think the hashtag refers to any recycling photograph; its recognizable format is a matched before-and-after view of a cleaned location.