Volunteer participating in Ludington beach cleanup is a robot

Editor’s note: The above video is from a May 11, 2023, report on the BeBot.

LUDINGTON, Mich. (WOOD) — A beach cleanup will take place at a Ludington beach Wednesday — and one of the participants will be a robot.

Grand Valley State University’s Annis Water Resources Institute is taking its BeBot on the road to showcase the beach-cleaning robot and educate people about the importance of reducing the use of plastic.

The remote-control robot has a basket that drops down and drags, spitting out sand and picking up everything else. It can pick up smaller items than other beach-cleaning equipment can because it has a smaller screen, Jamie Cross, the outreach and science coordinator AWRI, told News 8.

Most of what the BeBot — which also helps collect data on trash at the beaches — picks up is plastic. That plastic can break down and enter into the Great Lakes, Cross said, which 40 million people rely on for drinking water.

“Each year over 20 million tons of plastic, it’s estimated, enter the Great Lakes, so those plastic pieces break down into smaller and smaller pieces,” Cross said.

The BeBot showcases how important it is to clean up plastic from beaches, Cross said. More importantly, she said, it illustrates how important it is to reduce the use of plastic so it doesn’t end up on the beach to begin with.

Those interested in seeing the BeBot can stop by the Ludington Meijer Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. From 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., the BeBot will be participating in a beach cleanup event at Stearns Park . People are welcome to stop by to see the BeBot in action and to help clean up. A Few Friends for the Environment of the World, a Ludington nonprofit, is hosting the cleanup .

“There’s a beach cleanup with the local group that’s been doing them for a number of years,” Cross said. “We are going to demonstrate the BeBot while we’re there, we’ll take it out of its trailer and take it for a little run.”

This is the second full season the AWRI has had the BeBot, which is partially funded by Meijer. There are at least seven BeBots throughout the Great Lakes Region as part of a program by the Council of the Great Lakes Region Foundation, Cross said.

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