I’m not sure whether it is the press coverage that implies that this is a highly practical solution, or if the actual makers claim that too. But I look at it as a clever maker hack, not a commercial product which should be picked apart as flawed.
So it will create more waste than it will ever dispose of.
> not a commercial product which should be picked apart as flawed.
This is hacker news. It does not matter if your product is "commercial" or not. If it has flaws, they will be discussed here, we are not obligated to be cheerleaders for ideological solutioneering.
They're also completely insignificant, and actually make the problem worse, because it addresses the problem where people see it, which is a tiny, tiny fraction of the total problem.
Same with the highly publicized "man cleans up _____ and collects ___ bags of trash at park/beach, yay humanity!" stories. Media are pushed by plastics companies to cover these "feel good stories" because it implies that the problem can and should be addressed by citizen efforts like that. "Why if we all did that, we'd solve plastic pollution" seems to be the problem. It also sort of implies that if we had a lot more people like Mr. Good Guy Greg Litter Remover, the problem would be solved - when plastic is distributed pervasively through the entire ecosystem.
Can't clean up the millions of tons of plastic floating at all levels of the ocean, sitting on the ocean floor, in the stomachs of marine wildlife, etc.
This robot dog is like driving half-way across the country to spit on a wildfire and then calling up a bunch of news stations to tell them how you helped.
Not to mention all the resources consumed building the stupid thing that could have gone towards carbon and greenhouse gas reduction. Really, this is just some CS / robotics lab's vanity project.
Video of it in "action": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8BqvAe-moI
A video for the robot points out that ~3.5 trillion cigarettes are thrown into the ocean (and just the ocean!) per year.
If I'm going to assume that most babies, some children, and a few third world people do not smoke at all, and round it down to 3.5 billion smokers alive in the world today, you're saying that every single smoker throws 3 cigarettes into the ocean (just the ocean, not counting landfills) every single day?
But in Singapore they also pay people to sweep the streets, because despite the laws, trash still will accumulate. Note that Singapore also doesn’t have a minimum wage which means people can be paid a low amount to clean the streets.
In the U.S. we don’t enforce littering laws, and we also mostly don’t pay people to sweep streets. So we have very dirty streets.
What a robot can do is work for very low cost to clean up streets. Far below minimum wage.
This is a myth. You won't get caned for littering, though you'll be fined and possibly made to sweep the streets as part of community service. See: https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/littering-offe...
The 110% rule would be sustainable for a long, long time.
So not sure why this is some sort of innovation…
How do the sifting machines differentiate between cigarette butts and little sticks/rocks/pieces of driftwood &c?
If this dog vacuum thing is not too noisy and can unobtrusively navigate an area it seems like it might be a pleasant "always on" addition. I used to work a maintenance job where I'd show up at 1am and sweep up dozens of cigarette butts from the parking lot. Then I'd pop back out around dawn and there'd be a dozen new ones! It really is a constant and ongoing issue.
Perhaps the robot could monitor the area for active smokers and just go over and offer up an ash tray.