A mysterious Instagram campaign promising to plant a tree every time anyone shared a picture of their pet using a viral 'sticker' has been found to be out of control, without an organisation that can back up the pledge.
The sticker, titled "We'll plant one tree for every pet picture" has been re-shared alongside images of peoples' pets over 4 million times. However it has now emerged the company that started the scheme tried to close it down 10 minutes after it started.
People love sharing pictures of their pets, and so along with the promise of doing their bit for the environment it's no surprise people flocked to the trend.
Within a few days it had scooped up over 4 million participants, leaving the original posters of the stickers forced to admit they don't have the means to plant that many trees.
Who are the company and what did they say?
The organisation, called Plant A Tree Co., has released a statement that explains why the viral sticker found itself without an organisation to back it up.
The company, who claim they have planted over 6,500 trees and raised £370,000 said: "Thank you for sharing your pets, they’re adorable.
"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 realised 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."
Speaking to the Independent, Instagram 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.”
What have Plant A Tree Co. suggested to do next?
The ecommerce site, which sells bracelets which they promise will help in the planting of trees are now encouraging people to donate to the charity Tree For The Future who claim to use agriculture and agroforestry to aid farmers and forests.
Plant A Tree Co. said: "We want to use this awareness for lasting impact, so we created this fundraiser. It is raising money towards @treesforthefuture which is an organization that we love, who is dedicated to planting trees.
"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.
The post encourages users to share it with friends and celebrities so that, "so we can ACTUALLY plant 4 million trees".
The Mirror has approached Plant A Tree Co. for comment, who are yet to respond.
