Durban - Oceans will be the big winner in next month’s Spogomi World Cup, no matter which of the 21 countries claims victory in Japan.
Durban trio Derek de Froberville, his brother brother Philippe and friend Courtney Botha, who call themselves the Frober Rovers, won the Durban qualifiers at Blue Lagoon last weekend.
Explaining the “sport”, GeekXP promotions director Les Allen, who organised the qualifiers, said it was part of The Nippon Foundation's “Change For The Blue” initiative to draw attention to plastic waste in the world’s oceans.
“In a Spogomi event, teams are awarded points based on different types of trash they collect, for instance, 12 points for every 100 grams of glass bottles and 300 points for every 100 grams of cigarette butts. These are a pervasive, long-lasting and toxic form of marine debris, so more points are awarded for them,” Allen said.
Derek de Froberville said of their win: “I’m proud that we can be part of something bigger than ourselves. Durban beaches are amazing, but it’s only a small part of the global oceans. We grew up on Durban’s beachfront and we are doing our part to keep it as beautiful as possible, for as long as possible.”
De Froberville said Team Frober Rovers viewed the qualifiers as an opportunity to have fun by running up and down the beach and finding the most accumulated rubbish.
“For the world cup, there’s nothing to train for physically. The rules state you are not even allowed to run: you just take stock of the rubbish around you, notice how much of it is everywhere, and have the desire to make things better,” he said.
He added that he found it sad that they had to collect so much rubbish.
Allen said that during the qualifiers, teams had tried different tactics. Some focused on glass bottles while others targeted cigarette butts, but all “rubbish collected is rubbish that won't make its way into our waterways and oceans, which is the most important part”.
The Blue Lagoon teams collected more than 360kg of refuse and Allen said that highlighted the problem in the country.
“Events like Spogomi are incredibly important. It is estimated that about 80% of marine litter comes from land and cities. Trash pickup is the ‘last defence’ against this (https://spogomi-worldcup.org/en/),” he said.
Spogomi ‒ cleaning up as a sport ‒ started in 2008 in Japan and requires teams of three to clean up an area within an hour. This is the first time the tournament will have international participants.
The Independent on Saturday