Trash collection is not inherently fun or interesting, but in Baltimore, the solar- and hydro-powered Jones Falls Trash Interceptor – dubbed “Mr. Trash Wheel” by adoring fans – is a harbor-cleaning sensation, making a tourist attraction out of an environmental engineering device. Century designed the steel piling foundation that holds the wheel in place, protecting it from the effects of fluctuations in water level and flow rates and ensuring that Mr. Trash Wheel is here to stay.
Conditions are constantly changing at the mouth of the Jones Falls, where the trash wheel intercepts items that would otherwise make their way into the Inner Harbor. To determine the required embedment depth of the structure’s pilings to keep it secure, our geotechnical engineers used subsurface strata in the area and flow data supplied by the project owner.
With that geotechnical information, our structural engineers designed pilings that allow the wheel’s structure to fall and flex with fluctuations in water level and flow rates, making it resistant to potential impacts from current, wave action and ice.
Since completion, “Mr. Trash Wheel” has collected nearly two million pounds of trash – as much as 38,000 pounds in a single day. Its success has inspired the construction of two additional Baltimore trash wheels, all working to bring the Inner Harbor that much closer to the Waterfront Partnership’s ultimate goal of a clean, swimmable and fishable waterway.