Mr. Trash Wheel

Using Tech to Clean Baltimore Harbor

With Litterati, we are often thinking about innovations that enable us to improve our natural environment. Regardless of whether it is a school, waterway, hiking path or city block, there is a massive amount of work to be done. Aspirations of cleaning the planet one piece of litter at a time can be a daunting task.

So when we uncover stories like the massive trash wheel collecting discarded trash in the Baltimore Inner Harbor, it makes us stop and reflect: if the Baltimore area can produce a project that has picked up over 354 tons of trash through public/private funding — what if we empower people to contribute through technology via a mobile app?

credit: http://baltimorewaterfront.com/

If 5 people picked up 5 pieces a day, 5 days a week we could make a significant impact on a local level.

5 people x 5 pieces x 5 days per week = 6250 pieces.

Imagine the difference a 5th grade class, community business, or Girl Scout troop could make. It doesn’t take much to create an impact.

Take these local examples and magnify them by county, state and region and our collective impact becomes greater.

In the same way that Mr. Trash Wheel in Baltimore makes a really difficult problem approachable — making the bay in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor Swimmable and Fishable by 2020, we can do the same through Litterati. This model could be applied to regions like the San Francisco Bay Area, the Hudson Valley in upstate New York.

For more on Mr. Trash Wheel, check out the live feed or follow along on Twitter.

If you have stories about environmental impact in your area we’d love to hear more.