A remote-controlled pontoon with a hole cut through its middle is now doing a job that was previously too dangerous for people to tackle by hand: pulling litter out from where it piles up against Tennessee River dams. Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful and Yamaha Rightwaters debuted the device, called River ROVer, as a way to finally reach trash that collects in spots crews couldn't safely access before.
The technology, created with support from the Tennessee Valley Authority, uses a remotely operated vehicle to skim litter right off the water's surface, according to WATE 6 On Your Side. The outlet reports the device lets Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful collect litter that builds up at dams safely and efficiently, and describes it as the first of its kind in the world, with Yamaha having given the nonprofit the trademark on the design.
Kathleen Gibi, executive director of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful, said the problem of litter jamming up against dams has followed her for years. Gibi said concerns about it had been brought to her since she started the job in 2019, per the station's report. She also said litter can wash from land into waterways, and that people can help make a difference — a point the organization has leaned on heavily in its public messaging.
How Yamaha Landed on a Pontoon With a Hole in It
Joshua Grier, Yamaha's sustainability manager, said his team got to work after Gibi approached the company looking for a way to safely collect litter around dams that people simply couldn't reach. The solution his advanced development team landed on, per the same account, was straightforward in concept: a G3 pontoon boat with a hole cut into the middle of it, built specifically to scoop debris from the water's surface near dam structures.
The stakes for keeping the river clear go beyond aesthetics. The Tennessee River generates around $12 billion per year, the station notes, underscoring why organizers frame litter removal as an economic as well as environmental issue.
Decades of Buildup at Chickamauga Lake
The dam-litter problem isn't new, and it isn't small. Earlier this month, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful and the Tennessee Valley Authority teamed up to remove more than 5,000 pounds of trash from Chickamauga Lake, according to NewsChannel9. Gibi told the station that litter has actually been building up on TVA property over decades, not just months or years.
That Chickamauga cleanup also highlighted the structure of the river itself: the Tennessee River is comprised of nine lakes joined together and separated by dams, per the same report. Chickamauga Lake carries extra weight in that system because it serves as a primary source of drinking water for the Chattanooga area, the station reported — a detail that helps explain why debris collecting against dam structures draws so much attention from local environmental groups.
One Piece of a Broader Cleanup Push
River ROVer joins a growing toolkit the nonprofit has built out over several years. Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful says 18 Seabin electric litter skimmers are being installed on the Tennessee River and its tributaries, according to the organization's own Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful website, funded in part by grants from Keep America Beautiful and TDOT's Nobody Trashes Tennessee campaign. The group says the Seabin network is the largest of its kind on any river in the world, with each unit capable of removing up to 3,000 pounds of debris a year along with microplastics, oils, and gasoline.
The organization has also deployed what it calls Runoff River Guards after discovering a cove filled with litter that had arrived through a runoff pipe in 2021. The Tennessee Department of Transportation awarded a grant in 2023 that included funds to purchase up to five of the guards, and Keep Tennessee Beautiful followed in 2024 with funding to help cover labor and equipment costs for emptying them. The pilot calls for installing up to five guards across the Tennessee watershed for 12 months to track what kinds of litter are entering waterways from roads.
How much of that litter starts on dry land is something the nonprofit has repeatedly tried to quantify. Gibi told WATE that more than 80% of the litter in local waterways was originally littered on land, while the Runoff River Guards program page puts the figure at 80% of litter found in waterways. Either way, the message organizers keep repeating is the same: most of what ends up in the river didn't start there.
A Demonstration at Volunteer Landing
Representatives from Yamaha Rightwaters, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful were expected to participate in a demonstration of the new litter-removal technology Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. at Volunteer Landing, according to Knox TN Today.
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful says its broader goal is keeping the Tennessee River clean through a mix of technology, organized cleanups, and public awareness campaigns. Since forming in 2016, the group says roughly 2,700 volunteers have helped remove over 415,000 pounds of trash along the 652-mile Tennessee River and its tributaries, with more than 40 cleanups held each year across the seven-state watershed, according to The Fishing Wire.
Robotic cleanup tools aren't unique to Tennessee. In Milwaukee, two remote-controlled robotic devices are being used to clean litter from beaches and waterways, according to WPR. One robot sifts beach sand for small plastic pieces while the other collects litter floating on rivers and lakes, funded by a $250,000 donation from Meijer to the Council of the Great Lakes Region Foundation that was then given to Milwaukee Riverkeeper. It's a reminder that while River ROVer may be the first device built specifically for dam litter, the push toward robotic cleanup tech on American waterways is spreading well beyond East Tennessee.
