Professor Trash Wheel Ready To Go In Canton Harbor

BALTIMORE (WJZ) --  A new trash wheel is officially in business in Baltimore. Engineers cranked up the new device in Canton on Sunday, and it will prevent even more trash from pouring into the harbor.

There's a welcomed new sight near the canton waterfront, with a trash wheel at Harris Creek. And you don't have to look too far to see why this trash- trapping machine is absolutely necessary.

"It just makes me angry right? Who wants to look at trash in their waterways?" said Adam Lindquist, with the Waterfront Partnership Healthy Harbor Initiative.

The organization raised more than half a million dollars in order to install a new trash wheel, this one has been named Professor Trash Wheel.

"I mean, they have had to watch this trash just flow out of this outfall for years and years and years. The marina has all the trash collecting between their boats and in their marina slips and they should see an immediate reduction in the amount of trash," said Lindquist.

For people who live in the area and see the build-up of trash, it's something that will bring relief.

"It's really disgusting, sometimes it gets bad enough where you think you can walk on water," said Deanna Jenkins, Baltimore.

Professor Trash Wheel's predecessor, Mr. Trash Wheel, was installed in 2014, and the Waterfront Partnership says it's since captured more than one million pounds of trash. The group says that trash wheel at the mouth of the Jones Falls has trapped 208,000 grocery bags, 315,000  plastic bottles,  and a mind-blowing 8.2 million cigarette butts.

"The place is beautiful, the trash is the only thing. If you take the trash away, the place goes like 10 folds higher," said Yuval Hadaya.

The new trash wheel is expected to reel in about 5,000 pounds of trash every month, and it could help slowly reverse the harbor's perennial failing grade. More than 550,000 dollars was raised to help maintain the new trash wheel, with the help coming from multiple organizations in our area.