ST. PETE BEACH — Should St. Pete Beach join other barrier island cities in welcoming a remote-control robot on its beach to clean cigarette butts and other items, as part of a Keep Pinellas Beautiful demonstration this summer?
During their May 18 meeting, Beach Stewardship Committee members questioned the need for having a robot scoop and sift the sand for cigarette butts, when human volunteers could do the job just as well.
Patricia DePlasco, executive director with Keep Pinellas Beautiful, characterized Bebot as a “versatile eco-friendly beach cleaning sidekick.”
One Stewardship Committee board member said the thought of using a robot to clean the beach, followed by humans trailing along and watching, conjured up thoughts of absurd situations presented in a Franz Kafka story.
Keep Pinellas Beautiful is the second nonprofit in the country to utilize this technology from Surfing Evolutions and The Preservation Foundation, an organization founded by the Endless Summer license plate, DePlasco said.
Bebot “is designed to remove debris, preserve our beaches and spread awareness,” she explained. “The purpose is to have the Bebot capture attention and trash on Pinellas County beaches. We want people to be aware of what they leave behind.”
She advised Keep Pinellas Beautiful plans to visit between 10 and 15 locations throughout the month of July for a demonstration of how the robot sifts the sand to remove small pieces of trash left behind by beachgoers.
“We’ll hold traditional beach cleanups with the volunteers and the guests and have special volunteers sort litter captured in the Bebot,” she said.
Bebot runs on a combination of solar and battery power and does not require fuel. She added Keep Pinellas Beautiful staff and volunteers are trained on how to use Bebot respectfully and appropriately, so it will not be destructive to the local wildlife and ecosystem.
She told committee members, “I know there is a concern about bringing a vehicle onto the beach, but it’s not that big and it’s not that heavy, and it doesn’t dig that deep.”
Bebop is “not like a beach rake. If you look at the bottom part it’s a net, so what happens is that it goes over an area and kind of lifts the sand, brings the top layer onto a grate, and shakes it very gently, bringing the large pieces to the back of the device,” she explained.
She told the stewardship board there were concerns about ghost crabs when it was being tested in Brevard County.
“The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Fish and Wildlife sit on the Keep Florida Beautiful Board, so they were on top of this; and these are the questions that they asked, and we wanted to make sure that we were doing it right.”
She explained Bebop “just lifts up the top section, shakes the sand off, and the crabs that did come up in there just go right on to the grate; they take a little bit of a ride, but they don’t get hurt, they don’t get sucked in, nothing bad happens to them.”
One Beach Stewardship Committee member noted the device is operating “several inches under the sand, where there are a zillion and 12 things living in that. This machine, I would hate to see on my beach. The number of people who are following the machine could have cleared all the litter.”
DePlasco said it only goes down 3.8 centimeters (about 1.5 inches) into the sand, and they’ve never had an issue with it.
She added that the organization didn’t have to pay for the $68,000 machine and its main purpose will be education.
“If I can get bang out of it, educational bang out of it and get people to pick up those cigarette butts and not leave them behind … it’s just something to make people think,” she said.
She told committee members “if you would prefer that I didn’t bring it to St Pete Beach, I won’t bring it to St Pete Beach.”
One member noted “it seems like another added complication to a really simple solution; beaches are best if they are left alone. The more they are left alone the better they are. I see a parade of people following a robot. It looks to me like Kafka.”
DePlasco said it does pick up items that volunteers miss. “Our volunteers get the larger pieces; they do pick up some cigarette butts (but) for the most part they don’t.”
“The whole purpose for us doing this event, and the beach tour, is just to do a drive by on the beach and show the guests … what was collected, so that when they see all the different types of trash left behind … it’s an educational message.”
She noted there will be a Bebot demonstration and training on Madeira Beach at Archibald Park on Friday, June 24, at 10 a.m.
The demonstration on the barrier island beaches will begin with a trek along Madeira Beach on July 5; followed by a cleanup on Clearwater Beach at Pier 60 on July 8. On July 10, Bebot will be at a Sandcastle Stomp at the Bilmar Hotel in Treasure Island.
She said she hopes “this won’t be seen as anything that’s hurting the environment, since it is only an educational tool.”
Since the Beach Stewardship Committee is an advisory group, the final decision on whether to welcome Bebot to St. Pete Beach will likely be made by the City Commission.