Seth Landau Tackling Phoenix's Hiking Trail Trash Problem

PHOENIX, AZ — The 12-minute video that Seth Landau spent the better part of four months creating starts off simply enough.

The video features the journalist-turned-filmmaker and a cadre of friends doing their part to rid Phoenix Mountain Park's Piestewa Peak of a ever-growing pile of trash.

It also features a bevy of sound and visual effects, to bring levity to a subject that's all too real for anyone that's hiked in the Valley over the past few months: litter.

The movie is the second in a ever-growing series for Landau, who was a reporter at KTAR-FM, the East Valley Tribune and the Arizona Republic between 1995-1999.

The film's purpose is to show how widespread the pollution has become across the city's well-known hiking trails.

It's an issue that Landau attributes to the COVID-19 pandemic, which spurred a lot of novice hikers to take up the hobby.

"I've been a hiker for most of my life, so I was fortunate enough to have people in my life who were outdoorsy, and we spent a lot of time on the trails," Landau told Patch. "So I've been familiar with the terrain here in Phoenix since the late '80s.

"And I think the influx of everybody into nature, including quite a few people who probably aren't accustomed to it, kind of turned it into something like a block party or a sporting event."

The influx of litter led Landau and his wife to champion the cause of cleaning up the city's trails.

The couple, in addition to a few friends, then decided their best route toward success would be to make a series of entertaining-yet-informational videos that would show the full impact that people's discarded trash has on the local environment.

It was an idea that seemed second nature to Landau, who has produced a host of TV shows and movies.

Landau hopes people will watch his Piestewa Peak cleanup video and take away the lesson that everyone can do their small part to clean up the world around them.

"The challenge with a video is getting people to see it," Landau said. "So my hope is that the more people share and talk about it and write about it, the more people will see it.

"But once they do see it, the response has been 100 percent positive, because while I do put some humor and story into it, I try not to make it like a movie, per se. The message is to be good to your Earth, in this small way."

Landau said the positive response he's heard from people, ranging from friends and family to relative strangers, speaks to the common care we share for our figurative back yards.

"I have a background in filmmaking, and sometimes you make things and people hate it," Landau said. "And they'll tell you how much they hate what you've done and how awful it is. So it's nice to make a film about something that's really hard to argue against.

"And I didn't do anything too crazy to stray away from the message that let's be good to our planet. But let's do it in a way where there's good music and quick cuts and fast action, so it actually engages people."

When asked whether he foresees a third installment in his on-trail cleanup series, Landau said he's on the fence at the moment.

"Well, after the first one, I thought I was done because it was two months of my life, and it was exhausting," Landau said. "And then this one was even more exhausting, because it was four months of my life — it was approximately two months shooting and two months editing."

One item Landau might tackle down the road is the amount of trash he sees on his daily running and walking treks near the Biltmore on Lincoln Drive.

One way or another, regardless of the exact location, Landau plans to continue his ongoing quest to rid the city of Phoenix of its litany of litter.

"I've been thinking about that. There's so much material there, because there's so much [litter]," Landau said. "And I'm focusing on my neighborhood. If somebody did this in their own neighborhood, everybody would be busy. "