Britain cleans out competition at rubbish-clearing SpoGomi World Cup in Japan

The teams of three scoured Tokyo’s streets for 90 minutes over two sessions looking for waste and then sorting what they found into appropriate categories

The name SpoGomi comes from the conflation of an abbreviation of ‘sport’ with the Japanese word for rubbish, which is ‘gomi’

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Members of team UK sort out garbage they collected during the “Spogomi World Cup”. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:00pm, 24 Nov 2023Updated: 11:16pm, 24 Nov 2023

Britain came out on top when 21 teams from around the world gathered in Tokyo this week to collect litter in the inaugural SpoGomi World Cup, an initiative aimed at raising awareness of environmental issues.

The teams of three from countries as far afield as Australia and Brazil scoured the streets of Shibuya and Omotesando for 90 minutes over two sessions looking for waste and then sorting what they had found into appropriate categories.

Britain’s team, “The North Will Rise Again”, beat the host Japanese trio into second place by earning 9,046.1 points for collecting 57.27kg (126.26 pounds) of rubbish.

Members of team UK pose with their victory trophy at the “Spogomi World Cup” in Tokyo. Photo: Reuters

“A lot of the other teams maybe were more ecological, and less sport, and we’re probably the opposite, but we’ve taken so much away about how much we need to clean up our oceans and reduce litter,” team captain Sarah Parry said after collecting the trophy on Wednesday.

“It’s been a really good experience.”

Japan’s famously high standards of hygiene and cleanliness made finding rubbish challenging for some of the competitors.

“Sometimes it was really hard because there wasn’t really that much trash,” said Team USA member Beatrice Hernandez.

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