How Sweden uses crows to pick up cigarette butts
A Swedish city has recruited birds to collect cigarette butts lying littered across the streets as part of a cost-saving initiative that would also address a serious waste problem.
In a nutshell
The company behind the idea, Corvid Cleaning, will test the idea in Södertälje initially, with the intention of implementing the project on a large scale shortly.
Using wild crows, especially New Caledonian crows, Corvid Cleaning uses a step-by-step process to train the animals to pick up debris and place it in a food dispensing machine. Local news Sweden reported.
Christian Günther-Hanssen, founder of Corvid Cleaning, said that all birds are wild and “participate on a voluntary basis.”
Günther-Hanssen added that the crows “are easier to teach and there is also a greater chance that they learn from each other. At the same time, the risk is lower that they accidentally eat rubbish.
– The estimate for the cost of picking up cigarette butts today is around 80 öre [Swedish change] or more per cigarette smoke, some say two kroner. If the crows pick up cigarette butts, it may be 20 öre per cigarette butts. The savings for the municipality depend on how many cigarette butts the crows pick up “, he continued.
The information
According to the Keep Sweden Clean Foundation, more than a billion cigarette butts are handed out on the streets of Sweden every year. It accounts for 62 percent of all garbage on the country’s streets.
Günther-Hanssen believes that the method he created can save up to 75 percent of the cost of picking up cigarette butts.
Response
Although the project is very welcome as an initiative to clean up rubbish, Tomas Thernström, waste strategist at Södertälje municipality, said that the project is dependent on available financing opportunities.
– It depends on whether we can find a place in Södertälje that will work with the vending machine and then if there is an opportunity for financing, says Thernström.
– 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 not teach people not to throw them on the ground. It’s an interesting thought, “he added.