A man who was on a self-drive tour to southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region went viral on social media for picking up garbage at the scenic spots all the way throughout his journey.

A video of him collecting bags of garbage on his way was widely circulated on social media, attracting more than 4 million of views and thousands of comments and reposts.

The 27-year-old man, surnamed Cai, who comes from east China's Fujian Province, embarked on a self-drive trip to Tibet in mid-August. During his journey, he found that some tourists left garbage at the local scenic spots.

To protect the environment, he began picking up garbage with bags along his way and placed them in his trunk, and then transferred them to the garbage disposal station. He said he had collected over 500 bags of garbage.

Cai said even though he spent a couple of hours picking up garbage every day, he didn't feel tired and was not afraid to get dirty. All he wanted was to call on more people to care about the environment.

Influenced by Cai, many tourists began taking action, either handing him garbage or by picking up garbage themselves.

"I'm happy to see so many people joining in and some of them wanted to pick up several bags of garbage themselves," he said.

Cai's voluntary actions won praise from netizens on social media.

"This is the meaning of traveling, he did an amazing job," commented a user on China's Twitter-like Weibo.

"Brilliant. He deserved more attention and we should learn from him," commented another Weibo user.

There are also some criticizing those who left the garbage in the scenic spots and calling on people to care more about the environment.

"Those who left the garbage at the scenic spots should feel ashamed of themselves," said a Weibo user.

"I hope more people can be aware of that and do not leave any garbage during the trip," said another Weibo user.