Garbage day may become a bit more colorful soon as one Tokyo ward tries to defeat the plague of scavenging crows that descends on the city each pick-up day by changing the color of garbage bags.
Suginami Ward has come up with a scheme to replace the current white translucent plastic garbage bags with yellow ones. According to researchers who came up with the new trash sacks, the yellow color makes it impossible for crows to see inside, and so they are not tempted to peck them open.
In tests conducted in Suginami ward in which both white and yellow bags of garbage were left out in different areas, only the white bags were attacked by the black birds while the yellow ones were untouched.
Ward officials admit, however, that crows are very smart creatures (much smarter than Tokyo bureaucrats, apparently), and may eventually start ripping open the yellow bags when their food supply of white-bag trash declines.
