Instagram's 'Plant 1 tree for every pet picture' trend explained: Is it a scam?

10 November 2021, 15:26

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By Jazmin Duribe

Is Plant A Tree Co a scam? People are sharing pictures of their pets on Instagram in the hope a tree is being planted for each one.

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Here we go! Another Instagram trend is taking over the platform. This one claims that a mystery company will plant one tree for every pet picture you share. But is it even real?

Recently, people have started sharing images of their pets on their Instagram Stories in the hope of doing something good for the planet (and just to show how cute their pet is…) In fact, according to Independent, over 2 million people have shared photos of their adorable furry companions.

The sticker is pretty simple. It reads: "We'll plant 1 tree for every pet picture." Then, all you need to do is post a photo of your beloved pet.

However, the sticker didn't appear to be linked to any official account. So who is planting the trees? And, are they even planting the trees? Here's what we know.

Is Plant a Tree Co. a scam?

The 'we will plant a tree for every pet picture' Instagram trend explained

A company called Plant A Tree Co has claimed that they are behind the tree planting Instagram trend. Apparently, Plant A Tree Co started the trend on November 2 and it quickly spiralled so they deleted it. However, it somehow made its way back to Instagram.

Their Instagram post reads: "We posted the new 'Add Yours' story as a fun tree planting campaign where we can show off our awesome pets on Nov. 2nd! We immediately realized the post would grow too big and that we didn’t have the resources to plant that many trees, so we deleted it 10 minutes later. Even though we deleted it, a week later out of no where the stories continued to spread out of our control, reaching millions of reposts. Our credit for the post was also removed, because of what seems like an @instagram bug."

The charity are now requesting donations so that they can plant the trees like they originally intended to, admitting that they do not have the ability to actually plant all the trees promised. The statement continued: "We want to use this awareness for lasting impact, so we created this fundraiser. It is raising money towards @treesforthefuture which is an organisation that we love, who is dedicated to planting trees.

"WE ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH WITH @treesforthefuture we are simply raising money through this Instagram fundraiser which will directly go to them, so that they can use it to plant trees. WE NEVER TOUCH ANY OF THE MONEY. Please share this post and the fundraiser on your story, and tag all your friends, celebrities, and @instagram so they can see this and so we can ACTUALLY plant 4 million trees."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Plant A Tree Co. (@plantatreeco)

So, is it all legit? Well, without the credit there's no way of telling if Plant A Tree Co are the actual originators of the trend. They are yet to give details on where the millions of trees would be planted and they've admitted that they currently aren't able to plant all the trees they had originally promised.

Instagram have also distanced themselves from the campaign. In a statement, an Instagram spokesperson said: "The ‘we’ll plant one tree for every pet picture’ trend shows the power of the Instagram community to raise awareness on important topics. Like all other ‘Add Yours’ sticker threads, it was started by an independent Instagram account – not Instagram."

So in conclusion, it doesn't look like your pet pics are helping save the planet right now but rest assured they're brightening the day of all your Instagram followers.

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