China’s Solution for Trash-Strewn Mountains: Robot Dog Porters

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The four-legged robots are being used to remove tons of garbage from Mount Tai — and guilt-trip tourists who litter. China’s most popular mountain tourist spot has deployed an unusual new workforce: a pack of robotic dogs, which are being used to haul trash down the mountain’s steep, winding paths. The four-legged robots could be seen trotting up and down the steps of Mount Tai, or Taishan, in eastern China’s Shandong province last weekend, often laden with huge bags of garbage, sparking amusement among the hordes of tourists at the site. “Please don’t litter!” one robot can be heard blurting in a video that has gone viral on Chinese social media. “I work very hard every day and I don’t want to be too tired.” The robots are being deployed on a trial basis as the company responsible for waste disposal on the mountain — a subsidiary of Taishan Cultural Tourism Group — tries to find a solution to a growing labor crisis. Keeping Taishan clean is a daunting challen ………………………………