(Photo: Searial Cleaners)If you visit northern California’s majestic Lake Tahoe anytime soon, you might see what looks like a large remote-controlled car navigating the sand. But BEBOT isn’t just any RC car. It has a mission: to clean up beach debris.

BEBOT is a battery- and solar-powered robot made to sift trash out of the sand. It’s a collaborative product created by Searial Cleaners (a coastal waste management company) and Poralu Marine (a marine construction firm). The two companies introduced BEBOT over the weekend at Keep Tahoe Blue Stewardship Day, an annual volunteer cleanup event put on by the League to Save Lake Tahoe.

At over 1,300 pounds and 7.5 feet long, BEBOT makes a surprisingly quiet job out of raking cigarette butts, bottle caps, and other waste into its 100-liter collection container. (The robot does, however, notify beachgoers of its presence as it approaches.) Operators can control BEBOT from up to 150 feet away, pushing the robot to a maximum 1.7 miles per hour. BEBOT’s two tracks allow it to “climb” steep and relatively rocky terrain. 

Once BEBOT has filled its collection container, operators can manually search through the debris and toss any natural material (like shells or driftwood) back to the shore. Searial Cleaners says conservationists have found the robot “safe for fauna, flora, and sand”—an important distinction, since a beach-cleaning robot would be worthless if it destroyed everything in its path. Before its public debut, Searial Cleaners and Poralu Marine tested BEBOT on multiple Florida beaches shared by sea turtles. They experienced no interference with the turtles’ nests.

Robots like BEBOT are essential to preventing microplastics from integrating with the environment. During the testing phase, Searial Cleaners and Poralu Marine ran BEBOT along two privately-owned, regularly-maintained beaches that (to the naked eye) appeared very clean. BEBOT collected a significant amount of trash anyway, proving its efficacy with tiny debris or that which was hidden a few inches under the sand’s surface. The sooner this trash is removed from the sand, the less time it has to break down into smaller pieces and harm wildlife or the water supply. 

Searial Cleaners and Poralu Marine, in partnership with the USDA Forest Service, plan to run BEBOT along Lake Tahoe’s shore both during busy beach days and off-hours. The organizations hope BEBOT will alert beachgoers to their responsibility in keeping the shores clean, as well as maintain the sands when the beach isn’t so populated.

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