First, there were humans. Then, there was their trash.
One hiker in the woods was discouraged to find that, even in the middle of the wilderness, garbage found him.
"I'm winding down what has been a beautiful three-and-a-half-mile hike through the woods. Peaceful, serene, everything you could possibly want on a hike," Jeff Sutker (@jeffsutker1) says in a video he posted on TikTok. "And right towards the tail end, I stumbled upon this. And I find it very disappointing."
He sweeps the camera toward a gently gurgling waterfall and pond, which has beautiful rippling waters, and then he pans the camera over to the shore. Where he's standing, wet leaves intermingle with discarded water bottles, food wrappers, and other unidentifiable pieces of rubbish.
"See how beautiful this is? And now look at this," he says angrily. "Why?"
@jeffsutker1 #hiking #nature #litter ♬ Beautiful Nature - Steven Solveig
Commenters were horrified, albeit unsurprised.
"Yup, people are disgusting! Same thing happened in Lake Tahoe after 4th of July," one person wrote. "Thankfully a volunteer program cleaned it up."
Another agreed, venting that people "don't have respect for anything."
These commenters likely have firsthand experience with the trashy behavior themselves. Evidence of human activity — namely, discarded garbage — can be found in even the most pristine and remote places. From leaving scattered trash at a campsite to blatantly tossing bags of garbage into a local pond in broad daylight, it seems many people have no shame in leaving their refuse wherever they go.
Unfortunately, not only does this spoil the experience of spending time in nature for others, but it actually puts the ecosystem itself at risk. Trash is a known source of polluting chemicals and gases, which leak out into the air the longer the garbage sits there. Additionally, garbage can harbor disease-spreading species like mosquitoes.
Trash also poses a direct risk to local wildlife, which often confuse the bright colors of plastic for food. They then end up choking to death with stomachs full of plastic.
"So peaceful and then just so upsetting," one commenter vented.
All in all, both humans and the natural environment will be better off if people take the approach of Leave No Trace, leaving the same amount of garbage on the forest floor as they'd leave on their own (which hopefully, for most people, is none).
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