Mr. Trash Wheel

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In 2014, a new species appeared in the Baltimore Harbor. With 5 feet tall googly eyes, a playful persona, and a steady diet of harbor detritus, Mr. Trash Wheel is cleaning up the harbor one swallow at a time.

The brainchild of local inventor John Kellet who founded Pasadena, Maryland-based company Clearwater Mills LLC, Mr. Trash Wheel is officially known as a “waterwheel powered trash inceptor.” He was given his name and persona by the Waterfront Partnership for Baltimore as part of their Healthy Harbor initiative. Mr. Trash Wheel hit the harbor in 2014 and has picked up over 16 tons of trash and litter since then.

Mr. Trash Wheel uses the stream current and solar power to turn its giant wheels making him the world’s first sustainably powered trash interceptor. He waits for trash moving downstream to come to him, carried by the wind and rain during storms when trash flows unfiltered into our streams and into the Baltimore Harbor. The trash is then funneled by a containment boom to the front of the device where a series of rakes scoop it up and load it on to a conveyor belt. The belt moves the trash into a dumpster that sits on a floating barge in the back of the device. When the barge is filled with trash, it is removed and replaced with an empty barge so the process can continue.

Today, there is a Trash Wheel family comprised of working trash wheels in other city communities. Professor Trash Wheel works at Harris Creek in Canton. Captain Trash Wheel patrols Masonville Cove in South Baltimore. Gwynnda, the Good Wheel of West keeps the mouth of the Gywnns Falls near I-95 clean. And Mr. Trash Wheel makes his home at the mouth of the Jones Falls. The trash wheels collect over one million pounds of trash per year, including a guitar, a full-sized beer keg, and even a ball python!