‘More litter in Tahoe than meets the eye’

JT Chevallier and JB Harris operate BEBOT during a demo on Tallac Beach, June 15, 2022. Provided / Katy Jo Caringer

A robot beach cleaning company’s findings so far and future goals

In a test of human versus machine, volunteers evaluated their beach cleanup efficacy against the beach cleaning robot, BEBOT. Volunteers gathered all the trash they could find on a stretch of Nevada Beach. Then, it was BEBOT’s turn.

Human volunteers retrieved 30 pieces of trash, BEBOT captured 300.

“What that is highlighting is really not an issue with what was conducted with the human-powered cleaning, but,” JT Chevallier, co-founder of ECO-CLEAN Solutions said, “there is an ugly story that exists just below the surface of the sand that we might not be seeing.”

The ugly story sat on a slide behind him. It read, “…there is more litter in Tahoe than meets the eye.”

The slide was part of a larger presentation Chevallier provided in February at the Tahoe Beach Club regarding his company’s highlights and goals.

…sifting up to four inches below the sand’s surface and catching debris as small as 1 centimeter.

“We like to think challenges are not just challenges, but they’re opportunities,” he said at the meeting, with both humans and technology as a part of the solution.

While traditional human methods of beach cleaning are important for grabbing the wind-blown items caught in bushes or cleaning protected Tahoe Yellow Cress areas, it can be challenging and time-consuming to remove tiny litter under the sand.

That’s where BEBOT takes the baton, sifting up to four inches below the sand’s surface and catching debris as small as 1 centimeter.

“We like to think of ourselves as the last stand,” Chevallier said, against litter making its way into the lake’s ecosystem, becoming even harder to remove.

The work isn’t done after BEBOT’s hopper is emptied. The trash gets sorted and cataloged.

Typical categories consist of seed and other organic waste, invasive clams, bandaids, plastics, metals such as bottle caps, tent spikes and even coins. Chevallier joked, “That’s how ECO-CLEAN’s funded.”

Jokes aside, the data makes a serious impact as it becomes a part of the League to Save Lake Tahoe’s data. This data is important for policy and advocacy initiatives.

“We want to partner with organizations around the lake to stop litter at the source,” Marketing Director Katy Jo Caringer says, “Through data-driven solutions, we can help local […]

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