Watch drones pick up litter on US beaches and waterways

The high-tech skimmers are designed to remove bottle caps, cigarette butts, straws, cups, bottles and other manmade detritus in the water and sand. — Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensen on Unsplash

MUSKEGON: Millions of pounds of plastics are estimated to enter the Great Lakes every year and now two types of drones will be deployed to combat the growing problem.

A pair of eco-friendly drones or “litter bots” made their Michigan debut in Muskegon on Tuesday, Aug. 23, where the “PixieDrone” and “BeBot” trundled through the water and the sand gathering plastic debris that has become endemic in the Great Lakes.