Oakland man starts Litterati anti-trash campaign

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- A man from Oakland has started an environmental movement that just seems to keep growing. It's all about cleaning up the planet one photograph at a time.

Amid the rushing water and the lush greenery, Jeff Kirschner sees something else.

"I see everything from little bits of glass to stray candy wrappers," Kirschner said.

It was in these very woods that he first noticed the problem while hiking with his family.

"My daughter noticed that somebody had thrown a plastic tub of cat litter into this creek right here and she looked at me and said, 'Daddy, that doesn't go there,'" Kirschner explained.

The trash was a problem, but a bigger problem was that he hadn't noticed it. Kirschner said, "We've become desensitized. The litter has literally blended into the background of our lives. We just don't see it anymore."

He became fascinated with litter. While we were filming him, Kirschner pointed out an aluminum can and said, "That Lipton iced tea can has probably been there for 20 years."

He started taking pictures of it and posting them on Instagram with the hash tag #litterati and it took off.

"We crossed over 90,000 pieces of litter just the other day. Right now, the Litterati community is averaging about 1,500 pieces a week," Kirschner said.

The way it works is simple: you find a piece of litter, photograph it with Instagram and put #literati, then throw out or recycle the litter. That's it.

With enough help from the public, Litterati is doing more than just cleaning up the planet, they're also gathering data and creating a litter profile for every community.

"These are five of the most common items we'll see: a Capri Sun juice pouch, Snickers wrapper, Swisher sweets, Starbucks and Styrofoam," he said.

They know that's true in Oakland because every photo is tagged with its location. They also know, near a school in Modesto, a plastic straw wrapper was number one. The school cafeteria changed the straws it used and the problem went away.

"It can help inform us to creating better solutions," Kirschner said.

And it can inspire. The photos are collected on Litterati's website and also in an art exhibit that's now touring the Bay Area.