Crowdsourcing dog poo clean-up in France’s cities

An app that pinpoints dog mess for municipal cleaning teams.

Considered one of the world’s most beautiful cities, Paris also has an alternative reputation based on its dog poo-laden sidewalks. French inventor Rémi Tournier wants to make that dirtiness a thing of the past with his Bye Bye Crottoir app. Crottoir is a combination of the French words crotte (meaning dog poo) and trottoir (meaning pavement).

When users spot dog poo, they use the app to upload an alert and can add a photo and location pin to their local map. Alerts are then sent to the relevant municipal cleaning teams. The app is available across the country, and several towns and cities have expressed interest in using it. At the time of writing, Tournier’s goal of getting Paris City Hall to use the app has yet to happen.

We’ve seen crowdsourcing used fairly successfully in cities for cleaning, such as the vultures used to find illegal garbage dumps. What other municipal needs can be addressed with a crowdsourced solution?