After reading this story, and the forum thread on the Swiss shooting range designed to shoot over a highway, it occurs to me that Europeans seem to be better at adopting simple practical creative solutions to living in urban areas and optimizing confined spaces for multiple uses.

If this works out, maybe we can find a way to teach crows how to deal with the mess left by 'urban campers'.

[Note: hyperlinks found at linked website article.]

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Swedish firm deploys crows to pick up cigarette butts

Clever corvids become newest weapon in Södertälje’s war against street litter

Crows are being recruited to pick up discarded cigarette butts from the streets and squares of a Swedish city as part of a cost-cutting drive.

The wild birds carry out the task as they receive a little food for every butt that they deposit in a bespoke machine designed by a startup in Södertälje, near Stockholm.

“They are wild birds taking part on a voluntary basis,” said Christian Günther-Hanssen, the founder of Corvid Cleaning, the company behind the method.

The Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation says that more than 1bn cigarette butts are left on Sweden’s streets each year, representing 62% of all litter. Södertälje spends 20m Swedish kronor (£1.6m) on street cleaning.

Günther-Hanssen estimates his method could save at least 75% of costs involved with picking up cigarette butts in the city.

Södertälje is carrying out a pilot project before potentially rolling out the operation across the city, with the health of the birds being the key consideration given the type of waste involved.

New Caledonian crows, a member of the corvid family of birds, are as good at reasoning as a human seven-year-old, research has suggested, making them the smartest birds for the job.

Günther-Hanssen said: “They are easier to teach and there is also a higher chance of them learning from each other. At the same time, there’s a lower risk of them mistakenly eating any rubbish.

“The estimation for the cost of picking up cigarette butts today is around 80 öre [Swedish change] or more per cigarette butt, some say two kronor. If the crows pick up cigarette butts, this would maybe be 20 öre per cigarette butt. The saving for the municipality depends on how many cigarette butts the crows pick up.”

Tomas Thernström, a waste strategist at Södertälje municipality, said the potential of the pilot depended on financing.

“It would be interesting to see if this could work in other environments as well. Also from the perspective that we can teach crows to pick up cigarette butts but we can’t teach people not to throw them on the ground. That’s an interesting thought,” he said.



https://rumble.com/embed/vr9idu/?pub=4


@ 6 minute video on how the designer trained the birds and built the mechanism


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvmhl-E4QQ0

"..that we can teach crows to pick up cigarette butts, but we can’t teach people not to throw them on the ground. That’s an interesting thought.”

It might be more efficient to enforce littering laws and make somebody that litters pick up five pounds of cigarette butts.

Probably the most intelligent member of the bird family. They are said to be more intelligent than many members of the primate family and have the reasoning capability of a seven year old human.(better than many adults)

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
"..that we can teach crows to pick up cigarette butts, but we can’t teach people not to throw them on the ground. That’s an interesting thought.”

^^^^^^^
Always some one cleaning up some one else's mess. I totally agree with your view.

So very cool. Not that people litter, but that birds can be trained to pick it up and be fed. I see the minimum wage dropping! Disney and large theme parks should pick up on this (btw, corvids usually like shiny things, if that helps...)

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:...maybe we can find a way to teach crows how to deal with the mess left by 'urban campers'.

I can dig it.

A Murder of Crows

(Hitchcockesque)

Yes crows are smart, but ask farmers how they like them. In many parts of the United States there are bounties on them. If you can keep them confined to the urban areas that would be better,and you could hire people to pick up their copious feces.

I see it as a simple socio-economic equation. Just put a 50 cent deposit on each filter and the street people will pick them up for redeeming the deposit - similar to how soft-drink bottles used to require deposits. (oops - sounds like gun control to punish the good guys to control the bad guys.)

Ok, alternate solution - require that all cigarette filters be wrapped in aluminum foil by the manufacturers so that the crows will be able to easily locate them.

Ok, last solution - just outlaw smoking so that only outlaws will smoke.

Ok, never mind.............

Yes. The bird shit. I thought of that problem. The best I can figure is that the crows are already living in the city and already crapping, so I wouldn't think the problem any worse than it already is.. just maybe more concentrated in certain places such as the mechanical ash tray-feeder, or where smokers hang out to smoke.

Maybe the crows can be trained to clean up after themselves.. that is, after they finish cleaning up the homeless. Maybe a separate feeder for used dirty syringes?

Thanks for posting. We need more innovative ideas.

How long before there’s outrage about crows potentially getting cancer?

^^^^
Nicotine addiction. Might be another lawsuit in there.

Or the crows are so smart that they learn how to smoke and start snatching lit smokes out of smokers hands, smoking them down, then trading in the butts for food... or .. maybe while flying and smoking they drop a lit butt and start wildfires.

Hmmm, might gotta rethink this one.

Crows, okay.

Yesterday when I read the title I thought it said cows. Which obviously made less sense.

Too bad that some humans are not smart enough to be trained not to litter.