Mr Trash Wheel, officially called the Inner Harbor Water Wheel is a rubbish interceptor. A water wheel vessel that removes trash from the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland. It is powered by water power and solar power. The machine places rubbish from the harbor onto an onboard conveyor belt, which routes it into skips on the vessel. Mr Trash Wheel was invented by John Kellett in 2008, who launched a pilot vessel at that time. A larger vessel was later developed, and it replaced the pilot vessel and was launched in May 2014. The Mr Trash Wheel vessel is part of the Waterfront Partnership of the City of Baltimore’s “Healthy Harbor Plan.”
Mr Trash Wheel is a water-wheel vessel that removes rubbish from Baltimore’s Inner harbour. Rubbish from the streets of Baltimore is flushed into storm drains, and it ends up in the Inner Harbour. Mr Trash Wheel is powered by the current from the Jones Falls river, and backup power is provided by solar panels when the current is sluggish. The power sources propel a water wheel, which powers a conveyor belt. Mr Trash Wheel removes floating debris using rotating forks the dip into and out of the water, and which then place the rubbish onto a conveyor belt which moves it into a skip bin. The water wheel can be controlled remotely on the internet. Mr Trash Wheel was constructed using $720,000 of public and private funding.
Mr Trash Wheel was invented by John Kellett, who developed the idea when observing rubbish in the harbour on his walk to work. A pilot rubbish wheel was built and launched in the harbour by Kellett in 2008. After this Kellett built a larger machine that was launched in May 2014, which was able to pick up larger matter and held 2 skip bins onboard. The use of the 2 skip bins allowed the vessel to operate longer, without having to go back to shore to empty the single skip that was used on the initial pilot vessel.
In April 2015, after the first significant rain storm of the season, Mr Trash Wheel removed 19 tons of rubbish from Baltimore’s waterfront on that one day. The previous record for rubbish removal was in May 2014, when the machine removed 11 tons then. At the end of September in 2016, it was noted that Mr Trash Wheel had collected over 1,000,000 pounds (500 short tons) of trash since its inception.
Mr. Trash Wheel is part of the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore’s “Healthy Harbor Plan”, which has a goal to clean up the harbor to the point of making it swimmable and fishable by the year 2020. In 2015, the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore began fundraising efforts to construct a second water wheel like Mr. Trash Wheel for use “off the Boston Street Pier Park” at the Harris Creek outfall in Canton, Baltimore. This second rubbish wheel has been given the nickname “Professor Trash Wheel.”
Adam Lindquist, director of the Healthy Harbor Initiative, first added “googly eyes” to Mr. Trash Wheel on October 30, 2015, making the machine look like a cartoonish human face. This first set of eyes, which Lindquist had handmade in his spare time, were removed after a brief period. In March 2016, Key Tech, a Baltimore-based technology solutions company donated a more robust pair of permanent eyes.
