vol. 15
Do you know about the world’s most fun litter cleanup in the world?

...They collected this much litter in only one hour?

Hello! I'm Captain Sakana
I make and sing fish songs and draw animations for a TV Tokyo show, put out books, and explain the importance of fish and the marine life on the media.

The other day, I participated in the SPOGOMI World Cup Hyogo Prefecture competition as the Official Furuno Ambassador. You might be thinking, what is SPOGOMI? It is the sport that is the most earth friendly in the world.

SPOGOMI is an abbreviation of sports (SPO) and picking up litter (GOMI). It is a sport in which teams vie for points awarded for the amount and type of litter they collect in a predetermined area, within the time limit. It is an environmental movement garnering attention and leading to prefecture tournaments, the Japan Stages , and the World Cup.

Continuing from last year, I participated as a guest MC, and first gave an explanation about sea refuse.

(Reference : from The Ministry of the Environment website)
https://www.env.go.jp/policy/hakusyo/r02/html/hj20010103.html

Turning that kind of negative situation into an opportunity is the goal of this project. Together with more participants at Nishinomiya Bay than last year, this year again we kicked off amidst pleasant weather.
So, how much litter did everyone gather in one hour...?

The team I joined with was the Furuno newly hired employee team.
Amidst people shouting the slogan "Litter is treasure now," we met up at a park.

What I learned for the first time in joining this project is that different parks are managed by different organizations, and parks within industrial areas with loose management unfortunately become areas for littering and unlawful dumping.
And during our experience, there certainly was a large amount of plastic bottles, open cans, and litter that was so bad, I cannot go into detail about here.

Amidst all that, we found ... wait, what's this?!

"A vacuum cleaner? A car tire? A cooler box?!" We stumbled upon an area that was filled with large trash items.
But actually, in the SPOGOMI rules, it says that large trash items will result in decreasing points, so picking up large scale items is not recommended.

But what really warmed my heart was, the Furuno newly hired employee team said, "Let's take this home and throw it away ourselves!" They went above and beyond the rules, and carried home heavy and difficult to carry trash items.

Unfortunately, our team was unable to win the prize that day, but I wanted people to see their spirit and their actions to protect the sea that day, so I am writing about it here. ...Please, let me send them a Captain Sakana Award! (I want them to receive Furuno Company Awards. Lol.)

This year, the Sea Pulse Award was created for the first time, and there were honorable mentions for results that inspired us to see a future made possible by everyone's unique teamwork, such as the high school student team that came from Himeji and the team that collected a lot of golf balls.

Talking with the participants after it was over, I heard a lot of statements that made me feel how their attitude towards litter had changed in a concrete way during just one mere hour of competition.
"I was surprised to see how many cigarette filters had been thrown on the ground."
"Plastic bottles that still had stuff left in them were heavy."
"It felt good having the city we live in get cleaner."
"I want to do it again! Next time we're going to win!"

And you can see how amazing the results were!
This led to the highest level of participation and litter collection in the SPOGOMI World Cup.

What really shocked me this time was how different the amount of litter was depending on the place.

While there was no litter on bright roads and pathways that were used by a lot of people, mountains of litter were piled up in parking lots underneath overpasses where no one is looking. Those spots were clear indications of the weakness of people and a lack of imagination about what would happen to litter that was thrown away there.

For me, this was a meaningful day of activity made possible by joining hands with Furuno that would be successful if it inspired even just one more child to think, "When litter is thrown on the ground, it will eventually find its way out into the sea. There, it will damage living creatures and the environment, and that will come back to affect you in the future."

To everyone who participated, thank you again!
I hope you all continue to infuse your daily lives with your feelings about litter until we can one day reach a day of zero litter.