Meet BEBOT, the beach-cleaning robot that helps keep Tahoe blue
LAKE TAHOE — Next time you visit Lake Tahoe, you might see a new robot roaming the beaches.
BEBOT the beach-cleaning robot is the newest face on the frontlines in the mission to keep Tahoe blue.
"I might be a bit of a nerd, but it's pretty dang cool," said Jesse Patterson, the chief strategy officer for Keep Tahoe Blue.
Patterson introduced us to BEBOT, an electric and solar-powered robot that can sift through four inches of sand and remove debris half a centimeter in size.
"Not only is it fun but it's super effective," Patterson said. "It's picking up a lot of trash. We can avoid sensitive species."
Patterson said it's surprising how much stuff they find with the assistance of BEBOT.
Most of the heavy lifting is done by volunteers, and when they're done, the beaches may look clean, but beneath the sand is a different story.
"We were finding almost ten times the amount of trash [was] picked up by the robot than our volunteers picked up in the exact same location," Patterson said. "So it just means that out of sight should not mean out of mind because just below the sand is a bunch more trash."
BEBOT recently helped in the big post-4th of July cleanup when a record amount of trash was left at the lake.
"You could see it with your own eyes," Patterson said, "It was in the water, on the beach."
Keep Tahoe Blue partnered with Eco-Clean Solutions to first bring in the robot last year.
"This year, we actually added a second BEBOT to the fleet and are cleaning whole beaches instead of just 5,000-square-foot plots," Patterson said.
As more and more people visit the lake, they need all the help they can get to keep Tahoe blue.
"If we want to keep up with the impacts at Tahoe, we have to kind of raise the bar on how we clean beaches at Tahoe, and that may include cool tech like the BEBOT robot," Patterson said.
Keep Tahoe Blue is always looking for volunteers.