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A sand cleaning machine, beach cleaner, or (colloquially) sandboni is a vehicle that drags a raking or sifting device over
beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shells ...
sand to remove rubbish and other foreign matter. They are manually self-pulled vehicles on tracks or wheels or pulled by quad-bike or tractor. Seaside cities use
beach cleaning Beach cleaning or clean-up is the process of removing solid litter, dense chemicals, and organic debris deposited on a beach or coastline by the tide, local visitors, or tourists. Humans pollute beaches with materials such as plastic bottles and ...
machines to combat the problems of
litter Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. Litter can also be used as a verb; to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, ...
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 Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward ...
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, litter and other items. Similar applications include lake beaches, sandfields for beach volleyball and kindergarten and playing field sandpits. The word "sandboni" is a back-formation referencing the ice-surfacing machine Zamboni.


Common technologies

;Raking technology: This can be used on dry or wet sand. When using this method, a rotating conveyor belt containing hundreds o
offset tines
combs through the sand and removes surface and buried debris while leaving the sand on the beach. Raking machines can remove materials ranging in size from small pebbles, shards of glass, and cigarette butts to larger debris, like seaweed and driftwood. By keeping the sand on the beach and only lifting the debris, raking machines can travel at high speeds. ;Sifting technology: This is practiced on dry sand and soft surfaces. The sand and waste are collected via the pick-up blade of the vehicle onto a vibrating screening belt, which leaves the sand behind. The waste is gathered in a collecting tray which is often situated at the back of the vehicle. Because sand and waste are lifted onto the screening belt, sifters must allow time for the sand to sift through the screen and back onto the beach. The size of the materials removed is governed by the size of the holes in the installed screen. ;Combined raking and sifting technology: This differs from pure sifting in that it uses rotating tines to scoop sand and debris onto a vibrating screen instead of relying simply on the pick-up blade. The tines' position can be adjusted to more effectively guide different-sized materials onto the screen. Once on the screen, combined raking and sifting machines use the same technology as normal sifters to remove unwanted debris from the sand. ;Sand sifting by hand: This is used for smaller areas or sensitive habitat. Sand and debris is collected into a windrow or pile and manually shoveled onto screened sifting trays to separate the debris from the sand. While effective, it requires the movement of sand to the site of the tray, and then redistribution of the sand after sifting. A more efficient method is the use of a screened fork at the place where the debris is located. The effort to manually agitate the sand can become tiresome; however, a recent development of a battery-powered sand rake combines the spot cleaning effectiveness of manual screening with the ease of an auto-sifting hand tool.


Areas of operation

Sand cleaning machines are used all over the world for the purpose of the safety and happiness of beach-goers. By removing litter, unwanted seaweed, and other debris from the beach, municipalities and resorts are able to maintain their beaches with fewer invested hours. In addition to their regular litter-removing uses, beach and sand cleaners have been used to clean up after natural disasters. For example: In Galveston, Texas, low oxygen levels in the water resulted in thousands of dead fish washing ashore. Raking sand cleaners were then used to remove the rotting fish off the beach before they released excessive toxins into the air, sand, and water. The Olympic Games 2008 saw the first remote-control Sandbonis for the beach volleyball fields in Beijing Chaoyang Park. The cleanup after the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considere ...
saw large applications of sand cleaners to the area.Sandbonis to the Rescue
Sarah Netter, abc-news 16.6.2010
Similarly, the Rena oil spill in New Zealand also saw beach cleaners deployed in an effort to remove the affected sand.


Manufacturers

The major manufacturers of large beach-sand cleaning machines are considered to be H Barber & Sons, Cherrington, BeachTech, PFG Srl, Tuareg Srl, D'Hooghe machinebouw, ingeniería Flozaga Guterh Sl, Scam, Rockland, Qingzhou Rio, Tirrenia Srl and CleanSands. There are many other manufacturers of sand cleaners being used for other purposes. For example, a smaller 4-wheel and halftrack sand cleaning machine is used for sandpits in kindergarten and municipality playing fields and for beach volleyball.Halftrack machines of RO-FLEX GmbH
, Karlstadt, company website
When environmental or spot-cleaning requires hand operations, an auto-sifting, lightweight, screened rake can be the best choice.


See also

* Marine debris *


References

{{Reflist Waste collection vehicles Cleaning Sand