This new device scoops trash out of the harbor
so it can be sent to a waste energy plant.
Photo courtesy Healthy Harbor
Transcript of the Audio Podcast:
A spinning solution to litter in our waterways… on this CurrentCast.
Baltimore’s busy Inner Harbor has been used – and abused – for decades. But a new waterwheel is helping turn things around.
As it spins, the device picks up floating trash, sends it down a conveyor belt, and drops it in a dumpster so it can be hauled away to a waste energy plant.
Adam Lindquist, Project Manager for the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, says when the current is too weak, solar panels turn the wheel.
Lindquist: “So the waterwheel is a completely self-sustaining piece of technology in that it uses hydropower and solar power to run its operations.”
In three and a half months, the wheel removed more than a hundred tons of trash. As a result, the harbor is taking a turn for the better.
Adam Lindquist, Healthy Harbor Manager
Support for CurrentCast comes from the Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas. Learn more online at CurrentCast.org
Learn More:
- Healthy Harbor Baltimore
- Water Wheel collection totals and trash composition
- Mr. Trash Wheel Twitter
- “Video of Inner Harbor’s Trash-Gathering Water Wheel Goes Viral” from Baltimore Magazine
- “How a Solar-Powered Water Wheel Can Clean 50,000 Pounds of Trash Per Day From Baltimore’s Inner Harbor” from EcoWatch
- “This Water Wheel Is Cleaning Up Baltimore’s Harbor” from The Huffington Post
Baltimore Water Wheel video from HealthyHarbor:
