Baltimore’s got a brand-new trash wheel
Baltimore's Inner Harbor is about to get a new addition: A trash wheel that will be able to remove 50,000 pounds of trash a day from the troubled Jones Falls waterway.
The wheel, which cost $800,000 to build and will be the first of its kind in the country, will sit on the pier side of the Marriott Waterfront Hotel in fancy Harbor East, at the base of President Street.
The city has been without a trash-removing water wheel for several years. The previous wheel was smaller and less efficient, and it couldn't handle the large logs and debris that flowed down the Jones Falls during storms. It also was assigned only one dumpster to collect the trash, and when that dumpster went to the landfill, the wheel had to wait for it to come back before it could collect more.
It also fell to Baltimore City to maintain it, and the city didn't always have the resources to do so, said John Kellett, who designed both wheels.
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| The new Jones Falls Water Wheel should be able to capture 50,000 pounds of trash per day. |
Back when I used to sample in the Anacostia River in Washington D.C. there were boats designed with loading ramps that constantly scoured the river for trash. I wish I had taken a picture. Maybe I did, but I can't find it. And boy, was there ever trash. . .
A lot of it was wood, which washed in from nearby forests or down the Potomac River, but there was also a wide variety of street trash; cans, bottles, and other containers, balls, etc.
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| Trash boom on the Anacostia River |
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