Will see Crows trained to pick up cigarette butts
0http://shorturl.at/nMPS7 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdI64z4KvNQr9C1NlDauJ9A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdI64z4KvNQr9C1NlDauJ9A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdI64z4KvNQr9C1NlDauJ9A Will see Crows trained to pick up cigarette butts
SWEDEN has introduced an unorthodox new policy where crows clean the streets of cigarette butts and dumped litter.
The birds, which were chosen for their capacity to be taught such a skill, will be trained to pick up litter and discarded items through a feeding system. The birds will be rewarded with food dispensed from a special machine when they place litter from Swedish streets in Södertälje, a city south-west of Stockholm.
The machine can distinguish between different types of objects, noting what is litter and what is material from nature, such as leaves.
The project was launched by the Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation, with founder Christian Günther-Hanssen insisting the birds were “taking part on a voluntary basis”.
Known as "Corvid Cleaning", those involved are hoping the crows will help keep the costs of cleaning the city’s streets down.
Mr Günther-Hanssen predicts the pilot project could save the city around 75 percent of its current street cleaning costs, which amount to around £1.6m each year.
He told Swedish news agency TT: “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.”
Research into New Caledonian crows has suggested they have a similar reasoning level to human seven-year-olds.
The trial in Södertälje will be a test of the programme’s effectiveness, determining whether it will be rolled out more widely.
It will also take into account the health of the birds in its evaluation.
Mr Günther-Hanssen reasoned that it would cost the city around one pence for a crow to pick up a discarded cigarette butt, but under current street cleaning regimes, Södertälje pays around six pence for the same result.
He commented: “The saving for the municipality depends on how many cigarette butts the crows pick up.”
He added the project could expand to include training for other birds, such as jackdaws and magpies.
Södertälje municipality waste strategist Tomas Thernström emphasised that the outcome of the pilot rested on the concrete savings numbers it produced.
He said: “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.”
The trial is not completely unheard of - in 2018, a group of crows were trained under a similar regime in France.
They picked up and dropped off litter around the Puy di Fou theme park in western France, near the city of Nantes in 2018.
Nicolas de Villiers, the resort’s president, commented at the time although guests were on the whole respectful, there were lessons to be learned from the birds.
He said: “The goal is not just to clear up, because the visitors are generally careful to keep things clean, but to show nature itself can teach us to take care of the environment.” nonstop news
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