BALTIMORE, Md. -- Moving gently throughout the city’s harbor, a giant with googly eyes is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to trash. Mr. Trash Wheel as he is known is a solar-powered machine that’s basically a wheel of rakes that pull flotsam and jetsam up a conveyor belt and into a dumpster. The machine has reportedly collected more than 400 tons of garbage--some 120 dumpsters’ worth--in just two years.
Earlier this month the Maryland Port Administration gave the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore Inc., the organization behind Mr. Trash Wheel, $200,000 for a second wheel. The organization is now at 80 percent of its fundraising goal. The second trash-collecting water wheel will be placed in nearby Canton at an outfall near a public park.
To celebrate Earth Day, Mr. Trash Wheel hosted an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit. Some interesting tidbits right from the mouth of Mr. Trash Wheel in his live conversation:
- “The more rain, the more trash I get to eat! I once filled up 12 dumpsters in 2 days...talk about a food coma.”
- “All the data on the trash I eat is available on my website.”
- “I scooped up a keg last year and then returned it for a deposit. My filters aren’t fine enough to scoop up any jewelry, but if you wanted to toss a solid gold bowling ball onto my conveyor belt I’d appreciate it!”
- “As much as I would love for humans to recycle what I collect, Baltimore does not yet have the sorting technology to make it so. I am hopeful that one day soon it will be possible, but in the meantime the trash I collected is used to generate energy for Maryland homes. So far I’ve powered 3,110 Maryland homes!”
Read the original coverage about the Canton Water Wheel on the Baltimore Business Journal website.
Learn more about Mr. Trash Wheel by watching this video from Maryland’s Capital News Service:
