🍳Trash tournaments, self-healing tyres, and more...

🍳Trash tournaments, self-healing tyres, and more...

Hey folks!

Let’s kick off with something you probably haven’t seen on ESPN yet: a world championship where teams walk fast through streets, not to win medals, but to pick up trash.

Yeah, just thinking about it might give many Indians that bright Sunday feeling because, let’s face it, we’re fed up with trash, aren’t we? 

This particular sport we’re talking about is called “Spogomi”. It's a mashup of Sport and Gomi (the Japanese word for garbage).

And here’s how the rules go… Teams grab gloves, tongs, and matching bibs. They get 60 minutes to collect litter in a defined zone, then 20 minutes to sort it. And points depend on what they pick up. Bottles and cans score higher, cigarette butts score the most, and mistakes in segregation costs penalties.

Sounds absurd? Maybe. But it’s working wonderfully.

You see, Spogomi traces its roots to Tokyo in 2008, when a chap named Kenichi Mamitsuka wondered if cleaning up could be as fun as football. And fifteen years later, it went global with 21 countries competing in the first Spogomi World Cup in 2023. The winner? United Kingdom. And India (yes!), with the team Chennai Super Klean, finished sixth. The latest Spogomi World Cup 2025 also saw 1,458 participants and collected about 1,770 kg of trash! Plus, the format is spreading fast — the UK, Thailand, and even Australia have hosted their own national championships this year.

But the goal isn’t just motivation but action. Because let’s be honest, guilt and fines rarely clean cities. In India, we see murals, ₹500 penalties, awareness drives… and still mountains of unmanaged waste.

It’s proof of how a small idea might matter in a big, messy world generating over 2 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste every year. India alone adds roughly 62 million tonnes a year, of which about 75-80% gets collected and just less than 30% is treated or recycled.

It’s also not outsourcing civic work to players or volunteers. The genius rather is how it rewires perception. Once you’ve spent an hour competing to collect waste, you start noticing it everywhere. It’s behavioural science in motion — make something easy and playful, and it’s more bound to become habitual.

Of course, Spogomi alone can’t fix overflowing landfills or broken recycling systems. But it’s a reminder that maybe change doesn’t always need bans or lectures. And here’s hoping someone starts one in your neighbourhood soon, and may the cleanest team win! 🙂

Here’s a soundtrack to put you in the mood 🎵

Dil-e-Nadaan by Kavita Seth

You can thank our reader Ankit Yadav for this great recommendation!

Now, let’s get cracking.

What caught our eye this week đź‘€

The tyres that heal themselves 🛞

A flat tyre is the world’s most inconvenient surprise. It’s like life’s little practical joke because it often shows up when you’re farthest from help.

But scientists have found a way to overcome that and make punctures irrelevant.

That’s the promise behind self-healing and self-sealing tyres, and here’s how it works: manufacturers mix elastic polymers with reversible chemical bonds inside the tyre. When the tyre is punctured, these bonds break, flow into the cut, and when exposed with air, they reform and seal the gap. Michelin’s Selfseal tech uses a natural-rubber-based gel that can fix punctures up to 6 mm wide, while Continental’s ContiSeal claims it can handle 80% of everyday flats.

And India’s catching on as well. JK Tyre’s Puncture Guard coats the inside of tyres with a self-sealing compound, while CEAT is experimenting with similar gels for two-wheelers. And analysts think even a small premium-car adoption could create a huge market for this tech by the decade’s end.

Now, more than convenience it’s also clever timing. Because global natural rubber supply is wobbling and prices have shot up. You can read this story we recently wrote to know why. And tyres that last longer aren’t just good for drivers; they’re good for the planet too. Fewer replacements mean less rubber waste that clocks nearly 1.5 billion tyres a year worldwide.

Now, don’t confuse this with airless tyres. Those ditch air entirely, no flats ever. But the trade-off is weight, cost, and a stiffer ride. And that’s why scientists turned to self-healing ones that still have air.

And come to think of it, this isn’t just a product story but also a philosophy shift. We’ve spent decades designing things that break and get replaced. And these tyres hint at a future where machines quietly take care of themselves. The global self-healing materials market was about $2.5 billion recently, with aggressive growth forecasts through 2033. And if even a fraction of tyres adopt these materials, the economic and environmental upside is huge.

So next time life throws a nail at your tyre, imagine it just sighing, sealing up, and rolling on, as if to say, “nice try.” 

Infographic 📊

📺This always happens before a market crash

In this episode of Finshots TV, we delve into a critical trend in India’s stock market: Promoter Selling. Despite the Sensex trading at 80,000, insiders have sold over ₹1.5 lakh crore in 2024 alone, the highest in five years. Notable exits include major stakeholders from companies like Indus Towers, IndiGo, and the Adani Group.

Simultaneously, retail investors are pouring record amounts into the market, with SIP inflows reaching ₹29,361 crore in September 2025. This influx is keeping the market buoyant, even as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have withdrawn nearly ₹1.98 lakh crore this year.

So, who’s driving the market rally? Is it the informed insiders or the optimistic retail investors? Join us as we explore the dynamics of India's stock market in this episode. Click here to check it out.

Readers Recommend 🗒️

This week, our reader, Saumya Shah recommends reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

Saumya writes, “It’s a short but powerful read that combines his real-life experiences in WWII concentration camps with timeless lessons on resilience, hope and finding meaning even in the most difficult circumstances. It’s one of those rare books that changes how you see life, the choices you make, and the way you respond to challenges.”

Thanks for the rec, Saumya!

That’s it from us this week. We’ll see you next Sunday!

Until then, send us your book, music, business movies, documentaries or podcast recommendations. We’ll feature them in the newsletter! Also, don’t forget to tell us what you thought of today's edition. Just hit reply to this email (or if you’re reading this on the web, drop us a message at morning@finshots.in).

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