Single-use plastic waste sucks and we should use monkey-drones to fix it
In September and most of October of 2025, we were lucky enough to take a three-and-a-half week trip to Nepal. My god, is that country beautiful. It's people are incredible: smart, funny, patient, kind, giving, and they can cook like no-one else. The landscapes: chef's kiss.
Now this sounds like a buttering-up moment before the shit comes, aka the open-faced shit-sandwich. And it is, because one of the things that broke my heart was the amount of single-use plastic waste everywhere.
But it got me thinking: what can we do about this? It seems like a problem so insurmountable, so insidious, so rife with edge cases when thinking about solutions, that the operations nerd in me honestly got a bit excited in thinking about ways to solve it.
What is "it"? exactly?
- Visible plastic waste in our landscapes, both human and natural (microplastics scare me and I don't want to think about it)
- The wanton contribution to the problem by people, either consciously or obliviously.
Without further ado, here's one way to solve these plastic issues:
Trash-collecting monkey drones
There's an array of drones that work in tandem to clear areas of waste. There's a "mother" drone that has a bunch of smaller drones attached to it. But only the mother drone is a traditional propeller type drone and the smaller ones are tiny "monkey" drones, with a lot of articulation possible, similar to what we're starting to see from the humanoid robots from companies like Unitree. Part of the convoy of drones is another "collector" drone that the monkey-drones load the trash into. This one goes back and forth to the collection centre, where all trash is processed (by more drones?).
The monkeys have small storage compartments on their back. They need to be able to condense trash down somewhat to be able to store more, but will naturally be limited by weight. Some calculations of load-bearing weight versus battery efficiency will need to be determined. Let's potentially slap a solar-panel on their heads too, just for extending the lives of them a bit longer during deployment.
Let's imagine this in a real-life scenario:
- An area is identified that is prime for trash clearance.
- The mother drone and the collector drone are dispatched to the area.
- Mother and collector land, and the monkeys detach from the mother.
- The monkeys spiral outwards, collecting trash as they go, compacting as best as possible and placing in their receptacles.
- When they are full, they make their way to the collector, deposit their load, and then head back out into the field to complete clearing the designated area.
- Once the area is cleared, batteries are assessed to see if it's possible to proceed to the next designated clearance area, or if recharging needs to be done at home.
- Repeat
- Visible plastic is cleared from the planet!
There's a lot to unpack here:
- How do we measure the acceptable weights on the fly in the monkeys' backpacks?
- How much are monkeys expected to dig for trash? Is it just surface level?
- What if its wet? Can monkeys empty water-logged bottles for example?
- Can many monkeys work together to empty said bottle?
- What is the clearance pattern of the monkeys to ensure coverage?
- What is designating the areas for the drones for clearance?
- How do we track clearance schedules?
- What is the repeat clearance schedule to ensure cleanliness of said area over time?
- What if a monkey picks up a bomb?
- What if the bomb explodes the collector mid-air and makes the trash problem even worse?
- What if the monkeys identify a living creature and collect it?
- What if the monkeys are attacked by said living create or others? Do we then need "protector" drones to oversee the operation?
The list is potentially endless with edge-cases, but at some point it would need to be addressed, lest we have nightmare-monkey-drones parading about collecting children accidentally who are playing in the bush. Nevertheless, it's an idea!
What about the people still adding to the problem, you might ask? How does the monkey-drone convoy alleviate that issue? Probably it doesn't, in fact likely it just makes it worse because people will be wanting to watch the mothership land and deploy the monkey-drones. But maybe that's the entire point of artificial intelligence: doing the crap we don't want to do, and existing for our entertainment at the same time.
If anyone wants to make this then let me know and I can be the creative lead.