Last updated on August 7th, 2024
Meijer is continuing its commitment to Great Lakes stewardship with a $250,000 donation to the Council of the Great Lakes Region (CGLR) Foundation to launch a set of litter capture and clean-up technologies – the BeBot and PixieDrone – in Wisconsin, following a successful year of cleaning up Midwest beaches and waterways.
The first retailer to support this beach and water cleaning technology in the Great Lakes, Meijer first announced its partnership with the CGLR in 2022 with the deployment of the BeBot and PixieDrone. Despite having a limited number of drones, CGLR partners deployed the technology last year to collect an estimated 18,000 pieces of debris.
“At Meijer, we continue to make significant progress in protecting our beautiful Great Lakes so they can be enjoyed for generations to come,” said Erik Petrovskis, director of environmental compliance and sustainability.
“We are grateful to partner with the CGLR, which helps us live our purpose of enriching lives in the communities we serve and expand our environmental partnerships in important markets that directly impact our Midwest footprint.”
The donation brings a new BeBot and PixieDrone to Milwaukee Riverkeeper, an organization focused on water and wildlife quality in river corridors throughout the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic River Watersheds. This marks the retailer’s second partnership in Wisconsin and fifth across the Midwest. Current partners include Grand Valley State University, Ohio Sea Grant/The Ohio State University, The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay and the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Environmental Research and Innovation Center.
“We are honored to partner with Meijer and the CGLR on this exciting, new project to restore and protect our Great Lakes. Innovative solutions can only be accomplished through collaborative efforts like this one,” said Juan Alsace, board chairman of Milwaukee Riverkeeper.
“These new automated machines will generate data critical to helping our communities make informed decisions to address pollution locally and to find creative solutions globally.”
Continuing its community impact, Meijer will also host a public beach cleanup at Lighthouse Park Beach in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, beginning at noon CDT on May 9. At the event, partners from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh will be launching their BeBot for the season.
“The CGLR Foundation is very pleased to be partnering with Meijer to expand the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup to Milwaukee, a joint initiative with Pollution Probe in Canada,” said Mark Fisher, president and CEO of the CGLR.
“Through our partnership with Meijer, we are able to use innovative capture and cleanup technologies to learn more about the type of plastics on our beaches and in our waterways, sources and pathways, and how government, industry, coastal communities and consumers can work together to end plastic waste and litter.”
As a result of the donation, the BeBot and PixieDrone were welcomed at South Shore Beach in Milwaukee not only to tackle plastic pollution in the region’s waterways, but for the public to see them in action and learn about the technology.
The launch event brought together representatives from Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Meijer, the CGLR Foundation, Pollution Probe, as well as local officials in the Greater Milwaukee area. It featured live demonstrations of the BeBot and PixieDrone in action to show their effectiveness in removing microplastics and other debris from the environment.
