Baltimore's googly-eyed Mr. Trash Wheel gobbles tons of river junk

Mr. Trash Wheel is a cutie pie who sits at the mouth of the Jones Falls River where it flows into Baltimore's Inner Harbor, patiently gobbling up trash before it reaches open water. When rain washes debris from city streets into storm drains and down the river, booms extend into the water to funnel garbage toward the wheel's mouth. Underwater rakes guide the floating trash onto a slowly moving conveyor belt that lifts everything from plastic bottles to tires to mattresses out of the water, then deposits it into a dumpster barge floating behind the vessel.

Mr. Trash Wheel runs on nature's power. On calm days when river flow isn't enough, the roof-mounted solar panels kick in to pump water and keep the wheel turning. Once the onboard dumpster fills, crews tow it away, replace it with an emp