First came Marie Kondo's method for decluttering our wardrobes; now millennials around the world are sparking joy by tidying up the planet.

A new challenge - #trashtag - has taken off on Reddit, where users post before and after photos of areas where they've rolled up their sleeves and filled up garbage bags worth of rubbish.

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While the idea of tidying up public places isn't new — Clean Up Australia Day has been around for 30 years — the trashtag challenge seemed to gain traction a couple of days ago on the Wholesome Memes subreddit, under this post.

Since then a new trashtag subreddit has been born, and — predictably — grumblings about the trend being 'karma bait', memes, pisstakes, and fake posts have followed.

Despite all of that, the trend appears to be having a real-world impact, according to Callie Hyppa, a Community Safety Inspector at a Parks and Recreation department in Florida.

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Whatsapp Callie Hyppa has noticed the effects of trashtag as a Parks and Recreation employee in Florida

Callie saw the trashtag posts on Reddit over the weekend, and when she came into work on Monday, she was pleasantly surprised to notice waterways at her park in Hillsborough County was looking fresher than usual.

"As a Parks and Rec employee, THANK YOU to anyone who has ever helped clean up a park," Callie posted on Reddit, "This river used to be covered in trash and it's pristine again because of one of you. I hope #TrashTag never ends."

"I thought that was really awesome that people are getting out there and participating in this," Callie told Hack.

Callie says the waterway in her photo is usually littered with plastic waste and bottles.

"We have some really beautiful parks and it can be sad, it's a little depressing to see the trash everywhere. And our wildlife is dealing with it and running around in it, and trying to eat it.

The posts are definitely satisfying, it's almost therapeutic. I've been looking at all these posts on Reddit the past few days, and I'm kind of a neat freak - so it's been awesome to see all these transformations.

How #trashtag took off

As we've said before, the idea of cleaning up public spaces isn't new. But the before and after 'challenge' of trashtag did really gain traction over the past few days.

Rebecca from Atlanta, Georgia, says she didn't quite "start" #trashtag but "facilitated" its rise - after commenting on this post on the weekend.

"I happened to see the post when it was fairly new, so my comment ended up getting a lot of attention," Rebecca told Hack. "The original post mentioned it being made into a challenge and I immediately thought of the ice bucket challenge, which was a hugely successful campaign because it mixed people’s obsession with social media attention with a good cause. I merely pointed out that if that could be successful, the same concept could be used for something that a majority of people could get behind: cleaning up public spaces."

Other Reddit users suggested names for the challenge, but Rebecca liked #trashtag the best.

Rebecca says she thinks the success of #trashtag comes down to the fact that the challenge is simple enough to take up, and people feel empowered by seeing immediate results of their hard work.

"People enjoy trends that they can partake in, especially if they can use it as a way to get ‘internet points’, be it likes, karma, etc. People are also excited to see things that have real, tangible, positive results. So many fads are entertaining, but pointless.

No one saved an endangered species because they planked. No one helped fund a cure for a serious disease because of their Harlem Shake video.

"Trends like #trashtag allow people from all walks to be satisfied."

And now from Mexico to Taiwan, before and after photos from #trashtag keep coming.

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