A Dutch start-up called Crowded Cities wants to solve the pollution problem by training crows to pick up cigarette filters. They created a machine called a “crowbar” which will dispense food whenever a crow puts a cigarette butt in it, which will effectively train the crows to clean up litter. The crow brings a cigarette filter and drops it into the crowbar.
Once the camera recognizes the item as a cigarette filter, it dispenses food. Crows have been proven to be smarter than the average bird. They’ve been shown to remember and recognize faces. Recent scientific research has inferred that crows understand cause-effect relationships which is a concept children under 5 often struggle with. Crowded Cities is currently trying to fund their next round of testing.
