Lake Tahoe is famous around the world for its crystal clear, blue waters. But, its beaches are known for something else: tourists and trash.
This summer, a beach-cleaning robot, known as BEBOT, made its way to the shore of the lake to help solve this problem. This pilot project was a collaborative effort between ECO-CLEAN Solutions and the League to Save Lake Tahoe – and it’s already been deemed a resounding success.
“In a few sites where it was man versus robot, in the sense that we marked off a 5,000 square-foot area, cleaned it by hand to the best of our ability with volunteers, essentially cleaning it until you can’t find any more trash, and then running the BEBOT over that exact same area,” said Jesse Patterson, chief strategy officer for League to Save Lake Tahoe. “In each case where we did that, we found ten times the amount of items that we picked up by hand. But what it showed is there’s a whole lot [of trash] just below the surface.”