Mr. Trash Wheel is a semi-autonomous trash interceptor installed in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in 2014 that sifts trash out of rivers and the mouths of harbors. Sustainably powered by the current, with solar panels as back-up, it rakes hundreds of tons of trash out of the water, once setting a record of 38,000 pounds in a single day. It has removed 755k plastic bags, over 12 million cigarette butts, over one million each of foam containers and plastic bottles, a guitar, and a python (really) – doing its part to clean-up waterways and recover litter before it heads out to sea.
Author: Adam Lindquist
Director of the Healthy Harbor Initiative at Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore.