Hiker calls out destructive trend after unsettling discovery on national park trail: 'Can we stop?'

One TikTok content creator recently called out her fellow visitors to national parks after spotting a concerning trend everywhere they went.

"Can we stop littering at national parks?" Maria Watkins (@livingplanetfriendly) beseeched her 310,000 followers. "... At every single park and main sight to see, there's a beautiful view but hundreds of pieces of trash."

@livingplanetfriendly please 🥲 let's stop littering everywhere, especially national parks #Litter #StopLittering #NationalParks #Sustainable #Sustainability ♬ original sound - LivingPlanetFriendly

Littering, especially in natural areas, can have devastating effects on the environment and local wildlife. Trash can contaminate water supplies and soil and can be ingested directly by animals who mistake it for food. This can cause intestinal blockages and other fatal health effects for animals like bears and elephants.

Sadly, plastic waste now appears everywhere humans can go — and even in some places they can't. While it is easy enough to blame the people doing the littering (deservedly so), the fact that so many of the items we come across every day are marketed and sold as "single-use" is not helping matters, encouraging wastefulness and lack of care.

The littering isn't just annoying for fellow parkgoers and detrimental to the environment, either. It also can be dangerous for park employees to try and retrieve if it is, say, thrown off the side of a cliff.

These trash pieces are often "just out of reach … for parks employees, who can be put into dangerous situations trying to retrieve the trash," Maria pointed out.