Beach-cleaning robot unveiled in South Lake Tahoe

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Beach clean-ups have become common place around Lake Tahoe in order to pick up trash left behind before it makes its way into the crystal blue water.

There is an innovative cleaning tool being added to efforts this summer - BEBOT, the all-electric, remote control beach-cleaning robot that is solar and battery-powered.

Two South Lake Tahoe men, JT Chevallier and JB Harris founded ECO-CLEAN Solutions after being frustrated with trash and searching for a way to clean beaches without doing more harm.

They found BEBOT in France in 2021 at a company called Seariel Cleaners. The French company specializes in innovative products including bubble barriers and fixed and mobile waster collectors.

Harris and Chevallier are childhood friends who were raised in Las Vegas before moving to Lake Tahoe, and now they are partners in their new company.

They took BEBOT to Florida and tested it out to see if effective. The machine can be used in turtle nesting areas while still being effective in cleaning beaches.

Now BEBOT is in South Lake Tahoe (there will be a contest to give it a new name).

BEBOT moves along the sand and can dig down four inches to pull out debris. It filters out grains of sand and keeps anything larger. The collected trash is then dumped onto a tarp where humans can sort it, putting organic material back onto the beach.

On Wednesday at Kiva Beach, volunteers joined JB and JT and League to Save Lake Tahoe Chief Strategy Officer Jesse Patterson in testing the beach-cleaning robot.

Patterson had walked the beach and cleaned trash visible along the sand prior to the robot. Then BEBOT worked the same section, pulling out glass, metal, and hundreds of Asian Clam shells.

Patterson is excited to be able to use the data collected this summer which will detail how much trash was kept out of the lake the robot. A side benefit not known until today was the number of invasive clam shells on the shore. He will come back in a month for another robot cleaning and see how many clam shells have come back onto the same section to determine how many Asian clams are in the lake.

Chevallier said they needed a partner to bring the robot to Tahoe and they worked with Keep Tahoe Blue to fund the project. The robot is not cheap - it has a price tag of $66,000 and has two solar-powered batteries.

"We were approached by JB and JT with their idea to tackle the small trash on the beach," said Patterson. His agency has been spearheading beach cleanups for 10 years.

The long-term dataset from the clean-ups shows a trend toward fewer large items and more small items, which are difficult and inefficient for people to remove. The BEBOT can serve as the last line of defense to keep pollution, including ubiquitous and persistent plastics, out of the water.

The goals of the project are to not only clean the beach, but to create stewardship - people see what, and why, the need to pick up trash is important.

"People power is awesome, but combined with this may be the future," Patterson said of BEBOT.

Patterson said they will help navigate BEBOT for the future if the one-year pilot project works.

ECO-CLEAN Solutions will try BEBOT on other beaches this summer, and it will help with the annual July 5 cleanup at Nevada Beach after the fireworks. It could even debut at the American Century Championship and clean up the beach at the popular 17th tee.