LA dancer dresses as litter to fight trash on TikTok
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- A Los Angeles-based dancer and choreographer began making "duet" TikTok videos in October 2023 in which she mimics wind-blown litter alongside footage of the original rubbish, after noticing litter during pandemic walks.
- Her breakout video showed her dressed in all white, hunched over a cardboard box with hands clasped and soles of feet together to imitate an empty takeaway box in a white plastic bag; it accumulated 3 million views and convinced her to keep posting.
- She has since posted more than 100 videos on TikTok and Instagram under the caption "PSA: Please pick up your trash," impersonating crisp packets, plastic bags, and shopping receipts.
- Her costumes avoid creating additional waste — she uses only safety pins, never glue or tape, and layers existing clothing to replicate the litter she finds.
- Her most complicated video recreated an empty Chex Mix packet stuffed through a metal pole, requiring her to crouch on a swivel chair while balancing an upside-down chair above her.
- She selects only litter that is moving in the wind and made of non-biodegradable synthetic material, and bins every piece after filming, aiming to leave each spot cleaner than she found it.
- Though each video runs only about 15 seconds, filming involves hours of repeated contortion that leaves her sore the next day, and passersby often mistake her hunched posture for illness.
Why it matters: The project turns a viral-format anti-littering message into a performance art piece with a built-in cleanup component — every video ends with the trash being binned — giving a viral awareness campaign a tangible, measurable local effect rather than just online engagement.
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