Sweden startup is teaching crows to clean up cigarette butts after stupid humans
We have all read that fable of a thirsty crow dropping stones in a pot to get to water. Turns out, the story was not without substance. Crows are quite intelligent creatures, capable of coming up with innovative ways to serve their belly.
Now a Swedish startup has bet on the intelligence of crows to clean up after humans.
The startup called Corvid Cleaning is training wild crows on a pilot project to pick up cigarette butts from the streets of Södertälje, near Stockholm. The crows are trained to deposit the cigarette butts into a vending machine in exchange for food. The vending machine itself gives out the treat after scanning to ensure the deposited item is in fact a cigarette butt and not leaves or other trash.
Swedish enterprise Corvid Cleaning is testing a reward-based system where crows picking up cigarette butts and drop them into a trash can. Peanuts are then dispensed as a reward pic.twitter.com/3qjF2JrX0s
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 2, 2022
The method used by the startup is known to many as reward-based training or positive reinforcement training that we often use to train our pet dogs, cats (okay, maybe not cats) or even children.
BUT WHY IS THE STARTUP TRAINING CROWS TO PICK UP WASTE?
Other than the fact that humans couldn’t be told enough not to litter in public spaces, the Swedish startup is experimenting with wild crows to cut costs.
Christian Günther-Hanssen, the founder of Corvid Cleaning, told The Guardian, that employing crows would cut down the cigarette butt cleanup cost in the city by nearly 75%.
"The estimation for the cost of picking up cigarette butts today is around 80 öre 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,” he told The Guardian.
Södertälje currently spends 20 million Swedish kronor or nearly Rs 16 crore on street cleaning.
WHY ONLY CIGARETTE BUTTS?
According to the Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation, cigarette butts make up for 62% of Sweden’s litter thrown out on the streets and over 1 billion cigarette butts are tossed on the streets every year in the Nordic country.
And make no mistake, cigarette butts are not biodegradable as they are primarily made of plastic and also contain toxic chemicals.
So if the startup can get crows to pick up just cigarette butts, then they’ll be able to solve nearly 62% of the litter problem in Sweden. Also, since the project is still on an experimental basis, it is easier to train the birds in one particular item; otherwise, they may confuse stones, leaves and other similar things for trash.
WHY CROWS?
Crows are known to be one of the most intelligent animals on the planet and in fact the intelligence of some breeds is compared to that of a human 7-year-old. Studies have even shown that some crows do better than mammals or primates who are most closely related to humans in intelligence tests.
Remember the case of Betty the crow? In the early 2000s, Oxford scientists were fascinated with a captive lab crow named Betty making tools out of a wire to source food, not once but 9 times out of 10 such tests. Other than that they can solve problems, send messages to each other with gestures, even recognise human faces, hold funerals and more.
The Swedish startup is training crows belonging to the corvid family. Günther-Hanssen says that there is a higher chance that the crows learn from each other and also not mistakenly eat the trash.
DOES IT PRESENT ANY ETHICAL ISSUES?
Well, so far the impact of picking up cigarettes on the health of these birds is unknown. Even the startup is trying to figure out the answers to that. Also, the startup is not using captive crows for the cleaning job. The crows being used are wild crows, living in their natural environment being given an option of picking up cigarette butts for food.
Sounds like a great job opportunity, right? Well, only crows are eligible however.
Corvid cleaning company is not the only startup to have thought of this idea.
In 2018, a few crows were trained to clean up litter at a French theme park using the same reward-learning method. Before that in 2017, a Dutch company had also tried to train crows to pick up cigarette butts. However, the latter project was shelved due to lack of resources.
Sweden’s Corvid Cleaning company’s current project also relies on future resources.
If not anything, it seems like a great plot inspiration for the makers of The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening for another sequel starring none other than Moira Rose!