In Baltimore, Maryland, innovation surrounding plastic pollution is cleaning up water bodies.

1. Waste: Plastic pollution creates a domino effect of impacts on an aquatic ecosystem. Although awareness has been spread about this sustainability problem, there has been little tangible actions and scalable technology that has risen to the challenge.
2. The Inner Harbor Water Wheel is technology worth watching. Here’s why:
   • The city of Baltimore has prototyped, tested, redesigned, and deployed the Water Wheel
   • It is powered by water current and solar panels
   • A series of rakers that pull floating debris from the water onto a conveyor belt and into a floating dumpster
   • In it’s first trial, the Water Wheel removed 50,000 pounds of trash
3. Stakeholders that should be involved in deploying this technology are:
   • Team of Professionals from Baltimore city government
   • Project Developer- John Kellett
   • Government employees from cities located near water
4. This technology should call on the success from deployment in Baltimore to look for next steps.
   1. A task force should be assembled to discuss implementation and the success and flaws from its initial deployment in Baltimore.
   2. Secondly, the task force should identify other areas where the water wheel should be suitable.
   3. A manufacturing team should be assembled to begin constructing additional water wheels, under the supervision of its original creator John Kellett.

For more information, check out the articles below!

Video:

http://www.southernfriedscience.com/charm-citys-water-wheel-the-first-truly-feasible-ocean-cleaning-array-is-already-afloat/

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-need-to-kick-our-addiction-to-plastic