The internet is a weird and wonderful place filled with immense amounts of information and content, some highly educational and some not so much. Sometimes unnecessary planetary damage is gleefully filmed and proudly posted on social media, with TikTok taking the cake.
On the ever-growing social media behemoth that teens love, trends come and go quickly, but some of them can’t vanish soon enough.
Here are a few of the worst bad-for-the-Earth fads that have swept through the platform. Please don’t try any of these.
#frogarmy
Recently, a TikTok account tallied up millions of likes, followers and views on video posts where the user claims to be raising a “frog army”.
Alarming biologists, the user’s videos appear to catalogue a person collecting amphibian eggs from various water bodies, domestically raising those eggs into a swarm of tiny froglets, and then unleashing them into the wild.
The veracity of the TikTok is unconfirmed, and many commenters have expressed scepticism that the videos are real. Some have gone as far as to identify parts of the footage that seem to be from years-old YouTube videos. Whether real or hoax, the popularity of the frog army videos concerned experts.
Initially, @thinfrog’s videos seemed to inspire others. Older comments on the posts are chock-full of people asking where they could get their own frog eggs to raise and release. And at least one other TikTok user posted similar content, claiming to have released 100 million ladybirds in New York’s Central Park.
Relocating and releasing animals into the wild without proper approval and permits is a huge environmental risk. Moving frogs, even between ponds in the same area code, can be extremely detrimental to the local ecosystem and amphibians as a whole.
And even if the species in the frog army videos aren’t invasive, they could still easily pass along disease to new ponds and streams.
“It makes me cringe,” Tierra Curry, a conservation biologist at the non-profit Centre for Biological Diversity told “The Guardian”. “Instead of helping, (this TikTok user is) actually hurting the animals they’re releasing and all the animals in the environment that they’re releasing them into. It’s creating a vector for disease and invasive species.”
#beachdigging
Digging in the sand at the beach is usually pretty satisfying, harmless fun. But on TikTok, bigger is better if you’re trying to rack up views. In the platform’s apparent beach excavation trend, tiny plastic shovels and other sandcastle accoutrements are replaced by large shovels and a determination to go deep.
Unfortunately, digging a massive pit on the beach and leaving it there has downsides. These large holes can be a falling hazard for other beachgoers and can trap sea turtle hatchlings and other beach wildlife, according to multiple news reports from local Florida media outlets.
Don’t be a hole, cover your hole.
#resinart
Humans love art – it’s something which makes us uniquely human. But with great creative power comes great responsibility.
Resin art uses epoxy resin (a petroleum-based plastic-like product) to make everything from sculptures to key chains, furniture, wall art and more. It starts out in a pourable liquid form and can be “cured” into a mesmerising solid.
Watching flowing resin be poured and moulded is hypnotising, and the final product can be astounding, hence the proliferation of resin artists on TikTok.
But in both the solid and liquid stages, resin has big environmental consequences. Uncured resin emits toxic fumes and should only be handled using proper safety equipment in a well-ventilated space.
It’s also toxic to aquatic life and can cause a lot of harm if it’s dumped down the drain (or in the trash) in its liquid form. Uncured epoxy can only be safely offloaded via professional, hazardous waste disposal services.
When it’s cured, solid resin becomes just as indestructible as other plastics. It doesn’t readily break down. Instead, it’s destined to eventually sit in landfills, unchanged for thousands of years.
“I am not one to judge any artist’s medium choice, but I do worry that because resin crafts have become popular lately, we will eventually see a lot more resin in landfills than we typically do,” Alaina Wood, a solid waste disposal expert, told Mashable.
“I hope that people aren’t immediately throwing away resin crafts, but it is naive to think resin crafts won’t eventually be thrown out,” she added.
#tryonhaul
The fast fashion industry is an environmental catastrophe in its own right. It is a massively polluting industry, and when companies manipulate people into chucking out last year’s threads for the newest trends, they’re contributing to a growing waste crisis.
Sadly though, one of the most enduring trends on TikTok is try-on “hauls”, where creators receive packages full of clothing from a fast fashion retailer and then review each item on video.
Often, this type of content is sponsored, so creators are paid to give positive endorsements of the often cheap clothing.
Although these fashion influencers may go through more clothes than the average person, these videos are nothing more than sponsored advertisements meant to get more people buying more stuff they simply do not need.
Use your clothes until they’re worn out and then upcycle them into something else, such as wash rags or to use as stuffing for dolls and bedding.
#orbeez
Many of us may have come across “water beads” as kids or even as adults. They are super-absorbent polymers which aren’t plastic, but this does not mean it’s fine to dump them everywhere.
The expanding colourful spheres are made from super absorbent polymer gels, and although they do technically biodegrade over time, they were initially intended and marketed as a gardening and agricultural tool, to help retain soil moisture. But time is relative, and two to five years (maybe even up to 10!) is a long wait while polymer beads build up in the environment.
The TikTok trend doing the rounds involves employing increasing amounts of these beads in bathtubs, pools and even into natural ponds where they would appear invisible until picked up by hand, which is admittedly satisfying to watch but bad for the environment.
Just as they can pose a choking and obstruction threat to children, Orbeez and similar water beads can also be a risk to wildlife that might ingest them accidentally as well as clog up drainage systems and natural waterways.
#toiletoverload
This “trend” is pretty self-explanatory. It is literally people dumping random cleaning liquids, colourful paints and sometimes powders down the toilet. Is it a meta-commentary on consumption? An act of performance art? Doesn’t matter, it's deplorable, wasteful and just plain terrible for the environment.
Cleaning products can be extremely dangerous for both human health and the environment.
They’re not intended to be used or disposed of in high volumes, and mixing them together can be deadly. I will not attempt to understand why some people do the things they do but, of all the TikTok trends, maybe the beginning of my villain origin story.
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