A trash interceptor is a device in a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

to collect and remove floating

debris Debris (, ) is rubble, wreckage, ruins, litter and discarded garbage/refuse/trash, scattered remains of something destroyed, or, as in geology, large rock fragments left by a melting glacier, etc. Depending on context, ''debris'' can refer to ...

– before the debris flows out into a harbor, for instance.

Mr. Trash Wheel

Installed in May 2014, the

water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...

trash interceptor known as

Mr. Trash Wheel Mr. Trash Wheel, officially called the Inner Harbor Water Wheel, is a trash interceptor, a vessel that removes trash from the Jones Falls river as it empties into the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland. It is powered by water power, water wheels ...

, officially the Inner Harbor Water Wheel, is the world's first permanent water wheel trash interceptor. It sits at the mouth of the

Jones Falls The Jones Falls is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 stream in Maryland. It is impounded to create Lake Roland before running through the city of Baltim ...

River in Baltimore's

Inner Harbor The Inner Harbor is a historic seaport, tourist attraction, and landmark of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It was described by the Urban Land Institute in 2009 as "the model for post-industrial waterfront redevelopment around the world". The ...

. A February 2015 agreement with a local waste-to-energy plant is believed to make Baltimore the first city to use reclaimed waterway debris to generate electricity. The Jones Falls river watershed drains fifty-eight square miles of land outside of Baltimore and is a significant source of trash that enters the harbor. Garbage collected by Mr. Trash Wheel could come from anywhere in the watershed. Operated by solar and hydro power, the wheel moves continuously, removing garbage and dumping it into an attached

dumpster A dumpster is a movable waste container designed to be brought and taken away by a special collection vehicle, or to a bin that a specially designed garbage truck lifts, empties into its hopper, and lowers, on the spot. The word is a generic tr ...

; its daily capacity is estimated at 25 tons. In its first 18 months of operation, it removed more than 350 tons of litter from Baltimore's landmark and tourist attraction, including approximately 200,000 bottles, 173,000 potato chip bags, and 6.7 million cigarette butts. The water wheel has been very successful at trash removal, visibly decreasing the amount of garbage that collects in the harbor, especially after a rainfall. After the success of Mr. Trash Wheel, the Waterfront Partnership raised money to build a second water wheel at the end of Harris Creek, an entirely piped stream that flows beneath Baltimore's Canton neighborhood and empties into the Baltimore Harbor. The planned new water wheel was inaugurated in December, 2016, and dubbed "Professor Trash Wheel". Two more trash wheels, "Captain Trash Wheel" and "Gwynnda the Good Wheel of the West", were added in 2018 and 2021 respectively.

River Thames passive debris collector

There are several passive debris collectors (PDCs) on the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

in London, including one by the

Houses of Parliament The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank ...

. Unlike Baltimore's Mr. Trash Wheel they are totally passive and any debris collected by them must be lifted out by the use of a crane-equipped boat.Cleaner Thames – Port of London Authority passive debris collector takes on Thames litter
on YouTube, Nov 30, 2015

References

{{reflist Inner Harbor, Baltimore Environmental mitigation

Mr. Trash Wheel

River Thames passive debris collector

See also

References