Beach cleaner

A tractor-pulled beach cleaner at Hietaniemi beach in Helsinki, Finland.

Marine debris washed ashore on Hawaii

A beach cleaner is a vehicle that drags a raking or sifting device over beach sand to remove rubbish and other foreign matter. Beach cleaners are either manually hand-drawn or pulled by quad-bike or tractor. Seaside cities use beach cleaning machines to combat the problems of litter left by beach patrons and other pollution washed up on their shores. A chief task in beach cleaning strategies is finding the best way to handle waste matter on the beaches, taking into consideration beach erosion and changing terrain. Beach cleaning machines work by collecting sand by way of a scoop or drag mechanism and then raking or sifting anything large enough to be considered foreign matter, including sticks, stones, rubbish, syringes and other items.

Common technologies

Collecting technology is used in wet sand, hard surfaces and dirt on surfaces only. When using this method, the pick-up blade of the vehicle barely touches the surface, tines go into the sand and throw the dirt onto the screening belt. This procedure is of high cleaning speed and mainly used for large surfaces.

Sifting technology is practiced on dry sand, soft surfaces and on sand which also has waste buried deep inside. The sand and waste are collected via the pick-up blade of the vehicle, leaving the sand which is filtered out by the vibrating screening belt. The waste is gathered in a collecting tray which is often situated at the back of the vehicle.

Joint technology is usable on any sand textures, dirt on surfaces and oil pollution. When working with this method, the pick-up of the vehicle adjusts to sand conditions and takes up the top layers of the sand. This procedure is of high cleaning speed and high area efficiency, especially for cleaning up lumps of oil and the removal of seaweed.

Areas of operation

On the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, four beach cleaner tractors operate 365 days a year. The machines start at midnight and sweep the entire mainland coast (36 km). Each night the strandline is removed from every beach for the entire 36 km of the mainland. Areas where there are flags for swimming are swept from the waterline to the duneline every single morning. Other parts of the upper recreational beach are swept between the duneline and waterline between once a week and once a month depending on the popularity of that beach area. The beach cleaner is a cone-shaped sieve that picks up 150 millimeters of the sand surface and removes debris down to cigarette sized impurities. The sieves are pulled by 100 horsepower (75 kW) tractors. The machines remove 31 tonnes of debris from beaches in an average week. These beaches receive ten million visitors each year. The beach cleaning tractors also have a program to sweep sandy beaches along the Gold Coast's tidal waterways and the Gold Coast Broadwater.

See also

• Marine debris
• Waste collector (Trash collector)

References

Barber Beach Cleaning Equipment

Beach Cleaning Technique of BeachTech Vehicles

Cherrington Beach Cleaners Lift and Screen Method