ANOTHER typhoon means another islandwide debris removal.
Here’s one way of doing it that may help promote Saipan as a tourism destination.
Host an annual plogging championship.
Yes, there is such a thing, and it’s held annually in one of the world’s most visited countries: Italy.
In a recent report titled, “Italy, Land of Uncollected Garbage, Combines Running With Trash Pickup,” The Wall Street Journal noted that although Italy is a land of beauty, it also “struggles with chronic littering, inefficient garbage collection in many cities, and illegal dumping in the countryside of everything from washing machines to construction waste. Rome has become an emblem of Italy’s inability to fix its trash problem.”
According to the Journal, events “that combine running and trash-collecting go back to at least 2010. The sport gained traction about seven years ago when a Swede, Erik Ahlström, coined the name plogging, a mashup of plocka upp, Swedish for ‘pick up,’ and jogging.”
In Italy, this year’s championship was held in a northern city, Genoa, and drew more than 70 athletes from 16 countries.
“During the six hours of the race,” the Journal said, “contestants collect points by racking up miles and vertical distance, and by carrying as much trash across the finish line as they can. Trash gets scored based on its weight and environmental impact. Batteries and electronic equipment earn the most points.”
The Journal added, “A mobile app ensures runners stay within the race’s permitted area, approximately 12 square miles. Athletes have to pass through checkpoints in the rugged, hilly park. They are issued gloves and four plastic bags to fill with garbage, and are also allowed to carry up to three bulky finds, such as tires or TVs.”
The race venue, Genoa, “has a trash problem that gets worse the further one gets away from its relatively clean historic core. The park that hosted the plogging championship has long been plagued by garbage big and small.”
One of this year’s participants, Elena Canuto, 29, topped the women’s division two years ago. “This year I’m taking it a bit easier because I’m three months pregnant,” she told the Journal.
Around two-thirds of the contestants were Italians, the Journal added. “The rest came from other European countries, as well as Japan, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Algeria, Ghana and Senegal. ‘I hope to win so people in Senegal get enthusiastic about plogging,’ said Issa Ba, a 30-year-old Senegalese-born factory worker who has lived in Italy for eight years.”
During the race, some of the athletes collected their first trash 20 yards from the starting line while others “took off to be the first to exploit richer pickings on wooded hilltops, where batteries and home appliances lay waiting.”
Issa Ba, alas, got lost and was nowhere near the finish line two hours after the race ended. His phone ran out of battery. “I’ll be back next year, but with a better phone,” he said. Canuto fared better. “She used an abandoned shopping cart to wheel in her loot. It included a baby stroller, which the mother-to-be took as a good omen. Her total haul weighed a relatively modest 100 pounds, but was heavy on electronic equipment, which was enough for her to score her second triumph. ‘I don’t know if I’ll be back next year to defend my title. The baby will be six or seven months old,’ she said.”
In the men’s division, Manuel Jesus Ortega Garcia, a plumber from Spain, “brought in 310 pounds of waste, racked up more than 16 miles and climbed 7,300 feet to run away with the title.” Renato Zanelli, the 71-year old retired IT specialist defending champion, didn’t do well this year. But he said he would “take solace from the nearly new Neapolitan coffee maker he found during the first championship two years ago. ‘I’ll always have my victory and the coffee maker, which I polished and now display in my home,’ he said.”
The Journal said this year’s contestants “collected more than 6,600 pounds of trash. The haul included fridges, bikes, dozens of tires, baby seats, mattresses, lead pipes, stoves, chairs, TVs, 1980s-era boomboxes with cassettes still inside, motorcycle helmets, electric fans, traffic cones, air rifles, a toilet and a soccer goal. ‘This park hasn’t been this clean since the 15th century,’ said Genoa’s ambassador for sport, Roberto Giordano.”
How about it MVA? Plogging could be another signature sports event like Tagaman or Hell of the Marianas.
The illegal dumping sites on Saipan are well-known, except to the enforcers of the anti-littering law. Moreover, plogging could be less expensive and less frustrating than the other cleanup ideas that involve the CNMI government assuming another responsibility it is unlikely to perform well or even afford.
Taga Trash or Trash of the Marianas. I’m pretty sure MVA can come up with a catchier name.
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