Britain Cleans up…in Japan
By Steve Sharp
News comes that Britain cleans up in the first ever litter picking World Cup. A UK team were crowned champions in Japan after collecting 83 kilos of rubbish in just 45 minutes!
Alexander Winship, Jonathan Winship and Sarah Parry, who competed as a team under the name “The North Will Rise Again” beat twenty countries in the Spogomi World Cup 2023 held in Tokyo’s Shibuya district.
Shibuya is where the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing is, used by up to 500,000 people a day.
I have been there, and despite the organised madness of the place and the sheer volume of humanity, it never struck me as littered. Quite the opposite in fact.
But team “The North Will Rise Again” could see the unseen.
The trio managed to blow the other competitors out of the water, winning by nearly 3000 points after bagging 61 pounds more rubbish than their closest rival Japan, which came in second place.
Sarah Perry, 28, told the Times:
It's such a good sport. It's so strategic and intense; physically, psychologically. It involves real teamwork and is absolutely exhausting.
A sport?
You only get a certain number of bags. You have to decide what type of litter you're going to pick up depending on how many points each category is worth.
Competitors armed with gloves, metal tongs and plastic rubbish bags have to collect as much litter as possible in the square of Shibuya in 45 minutes.
They then have 20 minutes to sort their litter and are awarded points based on the type and amount of rubbish collected.
Burnable and non-burnable rubbish earns 10 points per 110 grams, cans, and bottles are 12 per 100 grams and PET plastic bottles earn 25 points.
Cigarette butts, meanwhile, are the most valuable pieces of rubbish to collect, as players can earn 100 points per 100 grams.
Each team is followed closely by a referee to make sure they don't break the strict rules. Competitors are not allowed to run through the streets, nor are they allowed to pick up rubbish from bins or shadow other teams.
Sarah Parry, a doctor, no less, managed to make it to the Japan finals by winning the London qualifiers, held in east London's Hackney Downs after her brother won the heats in Brazil.
This is deadly serious. Dr Sarah trains for hard and has run over 30 marathons. She says the explosive pace of litter picking at elite level is as exhausting as running 26 miles.
The title of the event Spogomi, is a mash-up of the English word sport with gomi, Japanese for rubbish.
So, it really is a sport then!
And in that sense, it’s a sport with a purpose. A benefit beyond just competitiveness.
What use to society is pole vaulting?
Perhaps there is an opportunity here to make the picking up of litter our national sport here in the UK.
Getting primary school children taking it up instead of egg and spoon racing.
The Keep Britain Tidy campaign, launched in 1954 still exists, and its emphasis today is as much to do with re-cycling as it is to do with tidiness.
So, a double benefit to those taking it up as a sport today. We are on to a winner here.
Perhaps we could come to love the oiks who chuck McDonald’s food cartons, empty cans of Redbull and fag buts out of their vehicle windows and see them as points donators.
Perhaps not.
Steve