Japanese student's smartphone game enlists players to hunt for trash

A Japanese university student has created a game that turns trash picking on the streets into a fun team competition, aiming to take it overseas to clean up the global environment.

He is gamifying the Japanese people's near future hunting for scraps to eke out their existence as the LDP ensures most people's lifestyles are a race to the bottom.

Kitamura started to pick up trash on his own three years ago while a high school student and became excited when he found items from foreign countries washed up.

I remember years back driving around Ishigaki Island to look for a quiet beach. When I got to one without people on it, I noticed tons of trash strewn across it thinking some pigs had a wild party ruining a beautiful beach. I was surprised to find all of the garbage was from Taiwan/Korea judging by the language or addresses on them. I picked up some cool buoys though.

Happily surprised that a TV show that is honestly not that good or entertaining was able to inspire the creation of this game, It may be a fad that quickly disappears but there is a chance it will continue and be a positive experience for a lot of people. Good for Kitamura for his efforts and the idea.

Don't need an app to find the trash in my area. The beaches are strewn with garbage and most of it ain't from China or Korea either unless they started putting hiragana and katakana on their products.

I like this kid's idea and drive though.

I remember years back driving around Ishigaki Island to look for a quiet beach. When I got to one without people on it, I noticed tons of trash strewn across it thinking some pigs had a wild party ruining a beautiful beach.

We had exactly the same experience. There is actually an English website an AET or someone made introducing "hidden beaches" on Ishigaki, but the first one we went to, down a very steep narrow path through some prickly trees only brought us out to a (very nice) beach covered in garbage, much of it off fishing boats. Since it was early December when we went, the main beaches, which people clean up, were deserted anyway.

It looks like there will be a game for every activity and people will not do anything unless it's a game, what a sad future!

Hey if it helps people clean up their own backyard go for it! Used to make me sad when hiking in Japan to see the flippant attitude towards throwing away trash. The council's could also help by putting out more garbage bins!

If Japanese stopped leaving their summer collection of ´just bought’ chairs, tables, barbecue sets, inflatable aids etc when the season finishes that might help and the fishermen?

They are major dumpers of old equipment!

I’m actually physically sitting on a beach on the Sea of Japan right now. I came to this beach last week and locals had cleaned it up. From my beach chair there are Japanese pet bottles, plastic bags some discarded fireworks farming equipment and mostly garbage from Japanese fishing boats.

when I was in Okinawa many times only half was from Japan. I do beach cleaning twice a year. It is actually very satisfying to see you made a difference. I think a game app is not as good as getting a bunch of geeks to go outside and actually clean a beach in real life.

Need more young people doing good for the community. Wishing him good fortune with his app but first, some words of advice:

Before we point fingers outward young man, we must look at ourselves. Meito Iwa in Ise is a World Heritage national embarrassment.

Japan’s shorelines are covered in PET bottles.

"I heard that countries in Southeast Asia and India are among the main sources of marine litter. I want to turn off the tap at source and we hope to go global one day," Kitamura said.

Focus on home first.

Few years ago I went to the beach to watch the sunset in Akita and I was really shocked at the amount of trash on the beach!! from dead animals to plastic, metal, and glass debris. the amounts were overwhelming that I could not even get out of my ride.

I don't know the source of it, but it was getting dark fast, even medical bottles with syringes still in them were laying around. I never went back so I don't know how is it these days.

I hope that things has changed since then.

virusrexMay 31  07:49 am JST

Happily surprised that a TV show that is honestly not that good or entertaining was able to inspire the creation of this game, It may be a fad that quickly disappears but there is a chance it will continue and be a positive experience for a lot of people. Good for Kitamura for his efforts and the idea.

Nothing but good could from this. Just last year, a bunch of Iraqis got together en masse and started cleaning up all the trash and rubble from the past decades of wars. Anything that cleans up the planet can't be so bad, can it?