If you woke up this morning and wondered to yourself, “Who’d win in a beach cleaning contest between dinosaurs and humans,” well – good news! A group in one Japanese city decided to find out.
Protecting Matsue’s natural beauty

The city of Matsue sits on the Sea of Japan in Shimane Prefecture in southwest Honshu, about four hours via transit from Osaka.
To call Matsue “picturesque” is, perhaps, an understatement. The city is famous for its sunset views over Lake Shinji (宍道湖; shinjiko). Matsue is also home to historic Matsue Castle (松江城), first built in 1611, plus a variety of parks, shrines, and temples. The area is also known as the home of izumo soba (出雲蕎麦), one of the “big three” soba variations in Japan.
With this much natural beauty, it’s no wonder people would want to protect it. But that’s getting harder as the oceans become more polluted. Humans discard a stunning 8 million tons of new garbage into our oceans every year.
Sadly, Japan is contributing to the problem. As we reported several years ago, Japan is one of the top exporters of plastics behind the United States and Germany. The country has vowed to course-correct, aiming for zero plastic waste in the oceans by 2050.
In Shimane, one group is on board with beating back the tidal wave of filth and keeping their prefecture clean. The Ocean and Japan in Shimane (海と日本inしまね) and its Change for the Blue campaign aim to get more people on board with eliminating plastic waste in the oceans entirely.
Dinosaurs vs. humans: Who wins?

To help raise awareness of their work, the group help a one-of-a-kind face-off this weekend at Matsue’s Kora Swimming Beach. They set two teams against one another in a contest to see which one could pick up the most garbage.
The twist? One team consisted entirely of dinosaurs.
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Team Tidysaurus (掃除サウルス), with 30 members, took on the 46-member Team Pretty-Loving Humans (キレイ好き人間), with each team scoring points based on how many bags of garbage they collected. As their name implies, Team Tidysaurus did this all in 84F (29C) degree weather dressed as tyrannosauruses.
You’d think that, with their short, stubby arms, the dinosaurs would be at a disadvantage. Not to mention there are fewer of them. Oh, and also, they’re in heavy-ass costumes on the beach on a hot day.
And you’d be right! The rules accounted for this by giving Team Tidysaurus two points for every garbage bag they collected. The humans earned one point per bag.
The result? In 50 minutes, Team Pretty-Loving Humans had collected 123 bags to the dinosaur’s 88. Given the point allocations, that means the victory went to Team Tidysaurus, 176-123.
One can argue whether this was fair or if the dinosaurs were given too many advantages to compensate for their handicaps. I, for one, welcome the arrival of our new large-headed and environmentally-conscious overlords.
Umi to Nihon in Shimane says they’re working with the city to plan other beautification challenges in the near future.
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Sources
海岸に恐竜が出現!人間とごみ拾いバトル勃発?!「お掃除サウルスvsキレイ好き人間 古浦海岸清掃決戦」を開催します. PRTimes
怒れる恐竜とごみ拾い対決 松江の海岸で奇抜イベント. Tokyo Shimbun
レポート 海洋汚染に激怒した”恐竜”が勝利!Umi to Nihon Project in Shimane
【増え続ける海洋ごみ】今さら聞けない海洋ごみ問題。私たちにできること. Nippon Foundation