Typically, when people in cities talk about carcass-eating vultures, it’s a joke about lawyers or developers or something, not flying scavengers.
In Lima, Peru, a team of actual vultures equipped with GoPros and GPSs are locating illegally dumped trash. The birds don’t just help spot areas where trash needs to be removed. Their work can help reduce disease or keep poisonous chemicals from contaminating local water, particularly in poor neighborhoods. A similar approach may be helpful in other cities with trash dumping problems, like Beirut and Bangalore. This idea came from U.N.-backed climate talks that focus on what cities can do to reduce climate change. Those talks, which started last year in Lima, continue this fall.
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