KINGSTON, Jamaica – St Jago High is known for its prowess on the track but it earned plaudits off it during the recently-concluded ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships with a cleanup initiative that sent a strong message against littering.

“We carried cheerleaders this year…so, the cheerleaders carried their refreshments, they carried boxes, bottles with juice and water and they had a bag that they were using to take up their garbage and I said you know what, I will try to get some other bags and we got two. So, we just cleaned up the entire area that St Jago was located,” St Jago Head Boy De Marley Cohen told OBSERVER ONLINE on Tuesday.

“Overall, we should understand the importance of maintaining a clean environment. St Jago is always clean because the people who clean it respect their work and we always clean up after ourselves. I remember when somebody saw the picture and they said we are the Japanese of Champs, but other than that, I just think that we should take pride in wherever we are and leave it looking good or looking better than it was before,” Cohen added, noting that cleanliness is a culture at the St Catherine-based school.

In Japan, tidiness is a virtue, and Japanese fans are known for routinely picking up garbage scattered across the rows of seats around them after football games. During the last two stagings of the World Cup, photos made rounds on social media of Japanese spectators carrying out the post game ‘ritual’.

It is hoped that the action by St Jago will spark an anti-littering culture at Champs and other major events. Cohen expressed that more schools should adopt cleaning up after Champs on a yearly basis.

“…When you go to Champs there is always another day, unless it’s Saturday Champs. Nevertheless, I think that lessens the amount of work that the people who have to clean up afterwards have to do. I think that most of the schools or all schools should make this a habit,” Cohen said.