Japan clean up Group E, their fans clean up the stadiums
Dozens of Japan fans have been sticking around after the final whistle at World Cup matches to help with the cleanup.
After Japan beat Spain 2-1 on Thursday (December 1), a group of Japan supporters hung around to collect trash left around the stands of the Khalifa International Stadium.
The courteous fans filled blue plastic bags with discarded cups, plastic bottles, and wrappers while most fans were already well on their way home into early Friday (December 2) morning.
Scores of Japan fans came to the match armed with clear blue bags which have become a symbol at the Qatar World Cup as fans have taken notice of their tidy ways.
One fan who took part in the clean up, Atsushi Nomura, said it was just common sense for people to pick up after themselves.
“If I don’t feel like looking at trash, I just pick it up. It’s faster that way. If we just wait for others to do it, nobody will do it. So, it’s faster that we just do it ourselves. That’s it. It’s simply because we like things to be tidy and clean,” Nomura said.
Another participant, Naoya Endo, said tidiness is instilled at a young age and likened it to a Japanese proverb.
“There’s a proverb (in Japan) that you leave things cleaner than you found them when you arrived. That’s to say we make the space tidier and cleaner before we leave, and that’s something we were taught by our parents when we were kids,” Endo said.
