By Don Willmott / Source: HuffPost

water

Water and plastic don’t mix, and anyone who has read a terrifying article or two about “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” knows that addressing what seem to be the impossibly huge issues of getting a billion tons of plastic out of our oceans—and preventing the nearly 300 million tons of plastic the world produces annually from polluting them in the first place—will take an effort on a global scale.

Potential solutions come in both micro and macro sizes. To see something bordering on the adorable, head to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, where a solar-powered device called the Trash Wheel slowly devours floating debris before it can make its way to the Chesapeake Bay. In operation since May, the contraption, which looks like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie, uses nets and a conveyor belt to scoop up to 25 tons of trash daily and deposit it in a floating dumpster. Among its catch to date: 40,000 grocery bags, 84,000 plastic bottles, and 4.2 million cigarette butts.

The Trash Wheel is designed to scoop up debris before it can make it out to sea.

You can see the Trash Wheel in action on YouTube (where it shows off its ability to grab logs and tires) and even follow it on Twitter. Part useful tool and part PR effort, it’s a great idea that’s well worth deploying in other locations where tight tributaries make their way to the sea in front of appreciative audiences who will gain a new understanding of the problem.

Read more @ HuffPost