Shorelines and sea floors near coasts have the highest litter concentration due to wind and waves repeatedly sweeping it to the shores, where it accumulates and threatens wildlife. Despite the efforts of many good-hearted people that clean the beaches, our plastic pollution problem is so enormous that it can be challenging to collect it all, especially the smaller debris.
To address this issue, marine infrastructure manufacturer Poralu Marine and 4ocean developed BeBot, a beach-cleaning robot that mechanically sifts through the sand to collect waste. As a result, BeBot cleans coastlines with minimal disruption to the precious ecosystems while leaving a minimal footprint on the environment.
While human sifters can pick up significant amounts of trash, it is labor-intensive work that takes a lot of time. On the other hand, tractors and other heavy-duty machinery cover more ground quicker but can destroy flora and fauna or cause landscape erosion.
BeBot takes a more delicate approach. The electric robot runs on solar and battery power and is remotely controlled via a human operator 984 ft (300 m) away. It digs 4 in (10 cm) into the sand and mechanically sifts the grains through a mesh screen to collect pieces of plastic and other debris as small as one sq cm, including bottle caps, cigarette butts, and food wrappers.
Impressively, the robot can clean 32,000 sq ft (3,000 sq m) of beach per hour, more or less depending on the landscape. It features an agile track system that allows it to turn instantly to function in constricted areas. Marine and 4ocean imagine BeBot finding use in everything from beachfront properties to hotels to nature reserves and golf courses.
For now, 4ocean is testing BeBot on the sunny beaches of Florida. Eventually, the company plans to send the robots to Hawaii to assist with local cleanup efforts. Meanwhile, a different kind of beach robot has emerged on the West Coast — a shark surveillance robot developed by California State University, Long Beach that patrols coastal waters to track great white sharks and relay real-time data to lifeguards.
Cleaning the beach has significant benefits to sea and land creatures. For example, the world’s most extensive beach cleanup on Versova Beach in Mumbai, India, brought back sea turtles for the first time in decades.
