A pair of cute, trash

Meijer Bebot

Meijer

The beaches of the Great Lakes are beautiful. That is, when they're not covered in trash. This is a big problem and requires solutions of various kinds. At least in the near term, the region is getting some help from an unlikely partnership, and a pair of cute, trash-loving robots.

Midwest retailer Meijer, a supercenter chain that sells everything from groceries to electronics, is giving back and trying a novel kind of remediation to the trash problem in and along the Great Lakes. As part of the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup Program, the brand is driving the largest deployment of robotics technologies in what constitutes the largest surface freshwater system in the world.

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The technology in question is the BeBot and Pixie drones.

"It is a privilege to live near the Great Lakes, which inherently comes with the responsibility to protect them," says Meijer President & CEO Rick Keyes. "Contributing to the conservation of these invaluable waterways is important to the wellbeing of our ecosystems, economy, and the communities we serve. Meijer has a strong history of environmental stewardship, and we're pleased to partner with the CGLR because the impact these initiatives will make will ultimately benefit generations to come."

The BeBot and Pixie drones were funded by a $1 million donation Meijer made to the charitable arm of the Council of the Great Lakes Region Foundation (CGLR) earlier this year. The deployment of these devices is part of the expansion of the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup's plastic capture and recovery effort, an initiative that started in 2020 by the CGLR and Pollution Probe.

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