Bobcat Attachment Cleans Douro River Beaches: A new Bobcat SC200 Sand Cleaner attachment is being used to clean river beach areas in Portugal. The fluvial beaches are authorized for bathing and lie alongside the spectacular Douro River in the Gondomar Municipality to the east of the city of Porto. The SC200 sand cleaner provides a more comfortable and efficient means of cleaning sand on beaches or river banks and is being used with a Bobcat T590 compact track loader to carry out the work.

“The sand cleaner attachment from Bobcat is an excellent piece of equipment that has brought great gains in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and quality in the cleaning work. With the new Bobcat sand cleaner, the work is done faster and saves on resources,” comments José Dias, who is responsible for providing the service.

The Bobcat sand cleaner is used to clean the riverside beaches of Lomba, Moreira, Melres, Cebreiros, Gramido and Ribeira de Abad, covering a total area of ​​approximately 45,000 m².

José Dias continued: “the cleaning service was previously carried out by a small sand cleaning machine, about 30 years old and with very low performance, so we have improved service, productivity and profitability as well.”

One of the advantages of the new Bobcat sand cleaner is that it can be used on both dry and wet surfaces. The sand on fluvial beaches has a different constitution to that found on maritime beaches. River beaches can also suffer from the presence of deep rooted undergrowth. This is normally removed from the sandy areas out of season. With the new Bobcat attachment, this work is now providing a yield four times higher than the equipment previously used and to a higher quality.

“The cleaning of all the sandy areas is now carried out over 8 to 10 days, depending on whether or not the sand is dry or wet, compared to the 30 to 40 days it needed in the past. The Bobcat loader package with the sand cleaner provides a solution that costs half as much as a dedicated sand cleaning machine for the same application. Cleaning with this implement is much cheaper thanks to the short cycles and high productivity of the Bobcat loader-sand cleaner combination,” said José Dias.

With a working width of 1900 mm, a working depth of up to 200 mm and a bucket capacity of 350 l, the Bobcat sand cleaner is a high performance attachment which allows the loader operator to quickly sift sand/soil and collect debris and waste as small as cigarette stubs. As well as cigarette stubs, the sand cleaner can also pick up other small debris such as bottle caps, broken glass, pieces of wood, cans, stones, rocks, plastic bags, syringes and seaweed.

Capable of covering a large area at a rate of up to 15,000 m²/h, the high productivity offered by the Bobcat sand cleaner is complemented by the high discharge capability. This is provided by the lift arms on the loader and the hydraulic hopper gate on the attachment, allowing the debris to be easily dumped into a waiting truck.

The SC200 sand cleaner is compatible with both the standard and high flow versions of the Bobcat T590, T650, T770 and T870 compact track loader models.

Like all Bobcat compact loaders, these models are equipped with the quick-change Bob-Tach attachment mounting system. This allows them to be combined quickly and safely with several hundred different Bobcat attachments, delivering versatility and time-saving efficiency across a huge range of different applications. The Bob-Tach system can quickly and easily replace a bucket with pallet forks, a landscape rake, a backhoe, an auger, a grapple or a host of other attachments.

Complete Cleaning Solution

The use of other attachments in the Bobcat range with the loader and sand cleaner combination can provide a complete all-round cleaning solution. For example, by using the Bobcat Root Grapple attachment on the loader before the sand cleaner, the operator can pick up larger material and debris before finishing the job with the sand cleaner. A Bobcat Angle Broom or Sweeper attachment can also be used to remove sand from nearby roads.

The compact size of the loader and its unmatched manoeuvrability give the operator the ability to work around fixed obstacles and to reach isolated locations where access is difficult or where approach can only be made down small access roads.

The sand cleaner attachment is therefore ideal for use on public and private beaches; holiday resorts; playground maintenance; sports fields (including beach volleyball and beach soccer); courts; zoos; horse racing tracks; farms and in the recycling/sorting industry.