Inner Harbor Water Wheel (Mr. Trash Wheel)

Remediation Strategy

Collection

Plastic Type

Macroplastics

Invention Category

Wheels

Used?

Yes

Included in analysis?

Yes

Location Invented

United States

Year^*

2008

Description

Wheel collects trash in the river before it can flow into the harbor.

Effectiveness or Ecological Impact

Non-peer-reviewed Effectiveness

The most Mr. Trash Wheel has ever collected in a single day is 38,000 lbs (Meet the Trash Wheels - Mr. Trash Wheel, n.d.). As of 2019, Mr. Trash Wheel has collected approximately 1253 tons of trash and debris—mostly plastic bags and bottles, cigarette butts, and foam containers (Kormann, 2019). Mr. Trash Wheel has intercepted over 3 million pounds of trash (Beacham, 2019).

Peer-reviewed Effectiveness

In 22 months, it collected 420 tons of plastic (Lindquist, 2016). It's collection capacity is 22 tons of plastic/day (Winterstetter et al., 2021). It collected 200 tons/year (Winterstetter et al., 2021).

Ecological Impact

The machine moves slowly enough that wildlife can escape before ending up in the dumpster (Lindquist, 2016).

References

Hamers, L. (2019, January 4). 4 ways to tackle trash besides Ocean Cleanup’s broken system. Science News. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ocean-cleanup-broken-system-other-trash-strategies; Krieger, A. (2016). Why Innovative Tech Solutions to Clean Up Oceanic Plastic Trash Are Simply Not Enough. AlterNet. https://www.alternet.org/2016/02/why-innovative-tech-solutions-clean-oceanic-plastic-trash-are-simply-not-enough; Mr. Trash Wheel. (n.d.). Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore. Retrieved September 8, 2023, from https://www.waterfrontpartnership.org/mr-trash-wheel

Non-peer-reviewed Effectiveness

Beacham, S. (2021). Mr. Trash Wheel is gobbling up millions of pounds of trash. CNET. https://www.cnet.com/science/mr-trash-wheel-is-gobbling-up-millions-of-pounds-of-trash/; Kormann, C. (2019). The Promise of Mr. Trash Wheel | The New Yorker. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-promise-of-mr-trash-wheel; Meet the Trash Wheels—Mr. Trash Wheel. (n.d.). Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://www.mrtrashwheel.com/meet-the-trash-wheels/;

Peer-reviewed Effectiveness

Lindquist, A. (2016). Baltimore’s Mr. Trash Wheel. The Journal of Ocean Technology, 11; Winterstetter, A., Grodent, M., Kini, V., Ragaert, K., & Vrancken, K. C. (2021). A Review of Technological Solutions to Prevent or Reduce Marine Plastic Litter in Developing Countries. Sustainability, 13(9), Article 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13094894

* Year designates the year invented; if the year invented was unavailable, the earliest year that an article about the technology was published was used.