It crawls along the beach sifting the bad from the good.
The solar-powered BeBot is a remote-controlled robot that pulls out dangerous microplastics and other small trash from the sand.
Bryan Bobbitt is with Keep Brevard Beautiful, the organizers of BeBot’s tour in the county.
“This is the first of its kind. There is not another robot like this in the United States. And we are very honored to be the first to actually try it on American beaches,” Bobbitt said.
It only goes down about two inches, but locals and tourists agree, there’s plenty to clean up.
“People need to take care of their garbage. For sure,” Kelly Lancaster, a visitor from Michigan said.
“Ever since I was little, I have done beach cleanups. And the amount of garbage you find in the ocean, it’s really sad,” Cocoa Beach native Drew Watts said.
While the robot won’t clean large sections of the beach itself, Bobbitt says that’s OK as that’s not the main focus of the program.
“Every time we come out here on the beach with BeBot, it brings a crowd. And that’s what we really want. Hopefully, it’ll create some type of behavioral change. To get people aware if they leave something on the beach, it could break down and become a microplastic. And we can avoid that from the beginning,” Bobbitt said.
BeBot will be touring the beaches of Florida, spreading the word about the importance of clean beaches. Next up, Clearwater and Tampa over the summer.
