Paris eScooters under pressure to prove green credentials

A pedestrian walks as a man uses an electric scooter of US company Lime in Paris. In the coming weeks, Paris will pick just three operators allowed to keep their scooters on the streets, down from around a dozen which began flooding the city last year. — AFP

PARIS: Pulling on makeshift roped hooks along a sun-drenched bank of the Seine River in Paris, Youva Hadjali and Edison Gompo fish out two electric scooters – not the most ecological fate for devices billed as a carbon-free fix for strained urban transport systems.

As city officials vow to rein in the use of wildly popular eScooters, their short lifespans, along with the energy consumed to build and service them, have many wondering if they are as good for the environment as operators say.