#Trashtag: Website offers P650,000 for environment cleanup challenge

April 10, 2019 - 5:18 PM
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Clockwork Dream Studio cleanup
Members of Clockwork Dream Studio conducting clean-up efforts for Freelancer.com's "#trashtag" challenge. (Facebook/fansoffreelancer)

A global crowdsourcing marketplace website encouraged the public to clean up polluted areas of their community through the “#trashtag” challenge where winners will get a cash prize.

Freelancer.com decided to incentivize its own community to join the social media challenge where participants will transform any “shabby” beach, park, garden, road (and) car park to a “sparkling” area free of environmental wastes.

Participants will have to document the entire process of their cleanup through pictures showing its before-and-after effects, as well as images of wastes being collected in the area.

A time-lapse video of the process is also encouraged to be submitted, although it is not required.

They must upload the pictures on social media with the hashtags “#trashtag” and “#freelancercleanup” and tag the official account of Freelancer.com.

Participants with the best cleanup effort will win $12,500 or P649,064 in local currency exchange rates.

Countries that have joined the challenge include Egypt, Bangladesh, Nigeria, the United States and the Philippines.

According to Freelancer.com communications manager Bea Rodriguez, Clockwork Dream Studio of the Philippines is a “strong contender in winning the jackpot prize of more than half a million in Peso” for its cleanup efforts.

The company chose a small residential area in Marinduque where a garbage-filled canal was unclogged and wastes segregated into biodegradable and non-biodegradable items.

They also submitted a time-lapse video as further proof of their cleanup efforts.

Clockwork Dream Studio also plan “to recycle the metals, plastic bottles, and plastic wastes for future do-it-yourself projects.”

The “#trashtag” challenge was started by Byron Román on March 5, 2019 when he encouraged “bored teens” on social media to pick up litter in their respective areas.

“Take a photo of an area that needs some cleaning or maintenance, then take a photo after you have done something about it, and post it,” he wrote in his Facebook post before.

Greenpeace in February 2019 also launched a social media challenge that aimed to make consumer goods companies accountable for plastic pollution with the hashtag “#IsThisYours.”