In Baltimore, Mr. Trash Wheel has become a bit of a celebrity among residents, especially those who hit the water. Photo: Mr. Trash Wheel
After eight years of gobbling up garbage in Baltimore’s waterways, Mr. Trash Wheel is finally expanding its reach on the East Coast.
The innovative method of removing trash from rivers and oceans has received lots of press since 2014. Now Newport Beach, Calif. officials have decided to follow Baltimore’s lead and install their own.
If you haven’t heard of these machines, they’re placed in strategic locations – like river mouths or other outflows – where the flow brings trash to them. The trash is then funneled onto a conveyer belt powered by the wheels, and then into a dumpster on a separate barge that can then be replaced with a new dumpster after it’s full. The wheels rely on renewable energy, using the water’s current when possible, and solar power the rest of the time. A “skirt” two feet under the water’s surface corrals trash into the machine’s “mouth.” Collected trash is currently incinerated to provide electricity, though its makers hope to eventually recycle the waste instead.
While Baltimore already has three trash wheels, the newer model for Newport — nicknamed “Gwynnda” — will collect more trash than all previous models combined.
John Kappeler, senior engineer for Newport Beach, told Southern California’s ABC News it “would not be a silver bullet.” However, the trash wheel can make a sizable dent in reducing ocean pollution.
“It’s not going to get everything, but it’s going to get a big slug of stuff,” Kappeler said.
“Gwynnda” boasts a 17-foot-tall wheel and a 70-square-foot barge. It will be permanently docked in San Diego Creek, where Newport officials believe it will catch 80 percent of garbage floating downstream. That will prevent most waste from reaching Upper Newport Bay, a nature preserve that’s home to several endangered species.
In Baltimore, three models of Mr. Trash Wheel have gathered more than 2,000 tons of trash since the project started in 2014. It began as an initiative from the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, adding additional wheels after the original Mr. Trash Wheel proved effective at reducing ocean pollution.
In Newport, officials want to do more than just collect the trash: they want to stop it from entering the water in the first place. By identifying the most common sources of pollution, city officials can educate the communities responsible for them, Kappeler told ABC News.
“We can try to figure out what we’re capturing and we can go upstream and maybe talk to those cities or entities and try to do better source control and just limit the amount of trash that comes down here,” he said.
Newport officials hope to have the trash wheel up and running by next year.
