MADISON (WKOW) — Social media challenges often have a negative connotation, but there’s one that’s been going across the world, and inspiring people to do some good.

With trash piling up along the side of the Southwest Commuter Path, Anastacia Gunn got fed up with all the mess.

So, she was inspired by a social media challenge called the “Trashtag,” which asks people to go to a messy place, clean it up, and take before and after pictures of the work.

She went out and cleaned up one small stretch and posted the picture on the Madison Reddit page.

“It’s gotten such a big response of people saying, ‘Yeah I’ve seen that trash, I take that path a lot and I’ve been wanting to do something about it but I haven’t gotten that push’,” Gunn said.

One of those people needing that push, was Jason Allen who joined her to clean for the first time Friday.

Together they filled bags of trash from about a quarter mile stretch of the path.

“There’s a lot of work yet to be done along the path,” Allen said. “I’m hoping we do get the whole path cleaned up while we branch out to other places.”

In essence all they’re doing is pretty simple: going around picking up trash where they see it.

All that they ask is that more people join them.

“If you’re going to go out on a walk, try to take a little grocery store bag with you and just pick up a couple bottles that you see,” Gunn said. “You know one bag of garbage, if everyone did it, would mean a whole lot.”

The City of Madison Engineering Division is normally in charge of maintaining the path.

They say to contact them if more clean up is needed but they do encourage people to be proactive to pick up litter.

“The weather is getting nicer, lets get together, volunteer do things like that,” Hannah Mohelnitzky, with the Engineering division, said. “It doesn’t have to be necessarily for a specific area but if we’re just getting out and doing good for our community, it makes a better place for all of us to live work and play.”

Gunn says she’ll announced future cleanups on Reddit.

They’re hoping to grow the group and organize more people to come and clean out at least once a week.

But the city is also looking for volunteers to clean up parks for Earth Day.

You can find more info here.