Second Litter-Picking “SpoGomi” World Cup Set for October 2025 in Tokyo with Teams from More Than 30 Countries Participating
Published on October 21, 2024
The Nippon Foundation will host the second “SpoGomi” World Cup in October 2025 in which teams representing more than 30 countries from around the globe will compete for the world title by collecting the most trash from the streets of Tokyo.
I made the announcement at a press conference on October 1 where I was joined by Olympic swimmer Mr. Takeshi Matsuda－the winner of four silver and bronze medals at multiple Games－Olympic hurdler Ms. Asuka Terada, and Paralympian shooter Ms. Aki Taguchi, all of whom will act as SpoGomi World Cup ambassadors.
The number of participating nations will be increased from the 21 who took part in the first championship held in the Japanese capital in November 2023, reflecting inquiries from a number of countries following the inaugural event.
“SpoGomi”, the conflation of an abbreviation of "sport" with the Japanese word for trash ("gomi"), was invented in Japan in 2008 as a competition to encourage people to clean up public spaces.
Under SpoGomi World Cup rules, teams of three people, regardless of age or gender, compete for points based on the amount and type of trash picked up in a designated area within a given time. The real challenge, however, lies in sorting it correctly into bags for combustible waste, recyclable plastic bottles, metal cans and other categories.
Starting in November this year, qualifying tournaments and national championships are being planned in more than 30 countries to select the teams that will go through to the finals. In Japan, preliminary rounds are scheduled between late September and July 2025 in all 47 prefectures.
The SpoGomi World Cup is being held as part of the Umi-to-Nippon Project (The Ocean and Japan Project) that the foundation launched in 2017 to raise people’s awareness of the issue of ocean debris, with the aim of passing on clean and beautiful oceans to the next generation.
SpoGomi World Cup ambassador Takeshi Matsuda told the press conference: “People can compete regardless of age or disability. It’ a sport in which anyone can represent their country.”
For my part, I stated: “According to experts, nearly 80% of ocean debris originates from cities and towns, so reducing litter on land is essential to preventing marine debris from accumulating. Reducing everyday trash will not only make towns and cities cleaner, it will also make the oceans cleaner.”
Expressing my hope that as many people as possible around the world will participate in the preliminary rounds, I said: “I believe that those who participate in the litter-collecting competition will refrain from littering in the future.”
The 32 countries currently planning to participate in the SpoGomi World Cup 2025 are 11 nations from Asia (China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam), four from Africa (Morocco, Namibia, South Africa and Senegal), three from Oceania (Australia, Palau and the Solomon Islands), two from North America (Canada and the United States), five from Latin America (Brazil, Bolivia, Dominica, El Salvador and Honduras) and seven from Europe (Bulgaria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom).
The defending champions, the North Will Rise Again from the United Kingdom, who clinched the inaugural world title, will also join the 2025 event, bringing the total number of participating teams to 33.