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Tech-Op-ed July, 2021 SOUNDING OFF


By Michael Skinner Editor


Googly-Eyed Trash Eating Monsters


I


f you’ve ever been to Baltimore, you probably won’t remember it as a beacon of light and cleanliness in an otherwise soot-stained East Coast industrial landscape. In fact, an enormous glut of trash floods


Baltimore’s Jones Falls stream and empties into the Inner Harbor each time it rains. To combat the never-ending flow of pollution, local logis- tics expert John Kellet devised and built what can be described as a kid- friendly trash-eating monster who’s always hungry. “Mr. Trash Wheel” is a disarmingly charming interceptor who


sits moored at the mouth of the Jones Falls stream and traps garbage as it floats toward the harbor. Mr. Trash Wheel uses rotating forks to collect garbage and feed it into a conveyor, which then moves it to a dumpster. The contraption is powered by the currents and backed up by so- lar-powered pumps when the stream is too weak. Two long floating arms with buoys funnel the garbage toward Mr. Trash Wheel’s gaping maw. The story goes that Kellet passed


Mr. Trash Wheel.


by the mouth of Jones Falls stream on his daily walks to work and saw how


the city’s storm drains flushed in an enormous amount of trash, pol- luting the river beyond recognition. As cliche as it sounds, the first prototype he devised of his garbage interceptor was drawn on a nap- kin, which had Kellet not drawn on it, probably would have ended up in the Jones Falls stream as well. The first iteration of Mr. Trash Wheel was launched in 2008, and


upgraded to double its capacity in 2014. In a single day in 2015, after the first big storm of the season, it removed about 20 tons of garbage from Baltimore’s waterfront. This shattered its previous record, which was 11 tons a year earlier. The Abell Foundation backed the development of Mr. Trash


Wheel who gradually became a notable figure around Baltimore. At the time of writing, his Twitter account has around 20,000 followers and is an online hub for the “Order of the Wheel,” a secret trash wheel society managed by the Waterfront Partnership. Mr. Trash Wheel was the first, but not the last, as Baltimore


then added “Professor Trash Wheel” and “Captain Trash Wheel” to the crew of garbage-swallowing monstrosities. And, before the au- tonomous garbage-collector community faced criticism over being too homogenous, Baltimore recently added a fourth interceptor, Gwynn- da “The Good Wheel of the West.” She is the largest collector to date, and will scoop approximately 300 tons of trash out of the river per year, more than the other three machines combined. The popularity of the project has resulted in three other trash


wheels undergoing development in Newport Beach, California, Fort Worth, Texas, and Panama City, Panama. Kellet’s inspiration came from Baltimore’s industrial-era water


wheels that powered the city’s lumberyards and textile mills. “I nev- er envisioned that we would have googly eyes on this machine and a name for it, and a beer, and Trash Wheel T-shirts, and a Trash Wheel fan club,” says Kellet. “It’s kind of beyond my wildest dreams.” r


PUBLISHER’S NOTE


By Jacob Fattal Publisher


mentum seems to have changed and as we plan for what is shaping up to be an excellent second half of 2021, we owe our readers and sup- porters earnest thanks and are very excited for the future. We are very sorry and feel deeply for those who lost loved ones


A Change in Momentum A


due to the pandemic, and we are grateful to have stayed close with our families and friends throughout the year. It’s amazing to see how quickly the economy has picked up, as soon as the danger of lockdown or physical restrictions was abated. We have been following the developments of domestic and inter-


national trade shows closely over the last few months. Now, the final kinks are being worked out among those who rescheduled or were forced to cancel. This August, we return to Anaheim for MD&M West, and accord-


ing to the show management, more than 1,000 companies are regis- tered already. After that and a short break, we’ll head back to Novi for The Battery Show, which will also focus on electric and hybrid ve- hicles — an area of great interest at present. After that, highlights in- clude The ASSEMBLY Show, SMTA International co-located with MD&M Minneapolis, and productronica in Munich. While the pandemic forced us all inside, it didn’t force the tech


industry to stop innovating. The rate at which EV technology has been improving is nearly unbelievable. Electric vehicles have reached a critical mass, and are no longer a sideshow to the world of automo- tive technology, but rather what appears to be the inevitable next step for vehicles. This, combined with recent developments in the technology of


automated driving and an ongoing push for legislation over the past decade, offer a glimpse of a future in which electricity is responsible for both the power and the intelligence of our vehicles. There is a lot to look forward to in the coming months, not only


in the electronics industry. The desire to get back to business is pal- pable in just about every interaction we have. We’re all chomping at the bit, and soon the gates will open again. r


s we go to press with our July issue, it looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel. The business world has been slowly piecing itself together after an uncertain year. Now, the mo-


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