Do you have what it takes to collect trash?
SpoGomi, a play on words of ‘sport’ and ‘gomi’ (meaning trash), is a growing competition in which teams of three to five people attempt to pick up the most amount of litter in a 60-minute window. Quality matters since organizers will be assessed for the highest quality of litter as well.
Japan publicly announced that it would host the first SpoGomi World Cup in November 2023 in Tokyo. Each team will have a designated area to sort their trash into color-coded bags for each type (burnable waste, recyclable plastic, metal cans, etc.).
When the competition reaches the end, the highest number of litter wins and quality will be judged to break any ties. There is a point system for the trash and cigarette butts are the gold that fetches the most points.
There are safety rules such as avoiding roads or railway tracks for the litter. People are expected to respect the rules of the other teams.
Participants are provided heavy-duty cleaning gloves and tongs to pick up trash. At the start of the competition, participants will yell “Picking up trash is a sport!” before darting to their place in the competition. At the end of the competition, all participants return to the starting line to have their stash weighed and checked.
Winning teams receive a certificate or a trophy from the organizers. There is more of an intrinsic reward for keeping the environment clean and bonding as a team.
“We believe it is important to collect litter in cities because there has been a sharp increase in the amount of waste in oceans around the world, so it is best if we can collect that trash before it gets into the ocean as it is much harder to gather at that point,” Takayasu Udagawa, who is overseeing the first SpoGomi World Cup, said.