TOKYO (Reuters) – The inaugural SpoGomi World Cup took place in Tokyo this week with the participation of 21 teams from around the world. The competition aimed to raise awareness of environmental issues through the collection of litter.
The teams, consisting of three members each, representing countries such as Australia and Brazil, spent 90 minutes over two sessions scouring the streets of Shibuya and Omotesando for waste. They then sorted what they had found into appropriate categories.
The team from Britain, known as “The North Will Rise Again”, emerged as the winners, collecting 57.27 kilograms (126.26 lbs) of rubbish and earning 9,046.1 points. The host Japanese trio came in second place.
Sarah Parry, the captain of the British team, expressed the value of the experience and the team’s learnings about the need to clean up oceans and reduce litter. “It’s been a really good experience,” she said after receiving the trophy on Wednesday.
According to some participants, Japan’s high standards of hygiene and cleanliness made finding rubbish challenging. Team USA member Beatrice Hernandez mentioned, “Sometimes it was really hard because there wasn’t really that much trash.”
The name SpoGomi is derived from the conflation of an abbreviation of “sport” with the Japanese word for trash, “gomi”. The initiative, which began in 2008 to encourage people to pick up litter in public places, has grown in popularity, with 230 contests held in Japan this year.
Organisers, the Nippon Foundation, stated that the World Cup was held to raise awareness of environmental issues, particularly plastic pollution in the oceans. Executive Director Mitsuyuki Unno emphasized, “The first important thing is to make people who are not yet aware of the marine waste problem realise the situation of litter in the ocean.”
The second World Cup is planned for 2025, with the goal of providing more opportunities for people who want to take action on environmental issues.
(Reporting by Reuters TV, writing by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)
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