Under-water robots to search for e-scooters tossed into river Rhine

A German city where more than 500 dumped e-scooters are estimated to be rusting at the bottom of the river is now using underwater drones to find them. — dpa

Canals, hedges, trees – there are few places where rented e-scooters haven't been dumped in cities around the world, where the sharing economy is increasingly leaving its mark on mobility – and nature.

In an effort to save its waterways from a growing number of rusting scooters, one city has now turned to robot help for a purge of its river bed.

Officials in the German city of Cologne are worried about the growing number of e-scooters being dumped in the Rhine river given the risk of leaky batteries polluting the waters and have recruited underwater drones to look for abandoned e-scooters.

Until now, there has not been an indication that pollution through batteries has happened, the district government in Cologne has said. One Cologne diver told local media that more than 500 e-scooters were lying at the bottom of the river in the city.

The rental firms say that an underwater drone will estimate the number of e-scooters that have been disposed of in the river so they can be retrieved by divers.

This environmental risk is not the only complaint about this electric mobility trend, and poorly parked scooters and speeding riders on pavements have made them an unwelcome addition to several cities.

In Germany, where they are banned from use on pavements but can be parked on them when not in use, an association for the blind has warned that the risk of people stumbling over a poorly parked electric scooter is significantly greater for blind people, with complaints to the association piling up since the launch of electric scooters.

Meanwhile cities around the world have been charting a rise in skull fractures, lacerations, dislocations, brain injuries, contusions, spinal injuries, dental injuries, burns and other common e-scooter injuries.

The mobility trend that has swept cities across the planet has been accompanied by many thousands of injuries, mostly among younger people, several studies have shown. – dpa