Some of the dirtiest, plastic polluted waters lie at the heart of major cities, in ports, marinas and where wastewater enters the environment. They are hard to keep clean because of constant activity that adds new waste to waterways. The work is wet, cold and dirty, which makes port and marina cleanups an ideal job for robots. Meet Michael Arens, cofounder and CEO of Clean Earth Rovers, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based startup that makes two robotic devices for cleaning and monitoring coastal waters. Media attention is focused on the seven garbage patch gyres in our oceans, but ocean plastic and algal blooms can be stopped close to shore with robotics technology and an investment in preventing pollution, cleaning up oil and nitrogen from farmland and industry.

Michael explains the devices, the Rover that can collect up to 100 lbs of waste during an 8-hour shift and the DataPod, a water monitoring buoy that sends data to a mobile app, as well as how the company started, its WeFunder campaign, and where the first orders for Rovers and DataPods will be deployed. You can learn more about Clean Earth Rovers at https://www.cleanearthrovers.com/