Canada’s first-ever beach cleaning robot just hit Lake Simcoe shores

Canada’s first-ever beach cleaning robot just hit the shores of Lake Simcoe.

The new, roving waste collector called ‘BeBot’ is a sand-sifting robot capable of removing debris like plastic, glass, metal, and paper from sandy beaches. BeBot has a goal of eliminating debris before it ever has the chance of hitting our Great Lakes.

This new machinery was unveiled on Monday by Pollution Probe at Sibbald Point Provincial Park in Georgina. This ‘neat’ initiative is part of the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup project which currently operates at more than 225 locations across the Great Lakes.

Picture a Roomba, but for the beach... the remote-operated technology will join more than 160 other plastic capture technologies around the province to help upkeep lakes throughout the summer and fall months.

BeBot is in collaboration with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Conservation and Parks.

Now part of the largest initiative of its kind in North America, the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup has reported the removal of close to 244,000 pieces of plastic debris to date.

Unsmoke Canada has supported the piloting of this technology by making contributions that led to the deployment of the very first BeBot here in Canada.