Posted on 07/14/2014 6:14:41 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
Daniel Chase, co-designer of the device, says it can remove 45,000 metric tons of garbage each day.
Instead of chasing one or two pieces of trash at a time, we just stand at the source of it and catch it all at once, he said.
Chase says the garbage comes from people who throw litter like plastic bottles or Styrofoam plates on the ground, instead of putting it into bins.
The water wheel uses renewable energy -- mostly river current, but when needed, also energy from solar panels.
It is run on water, so its either river current, pushing from underneath or we are pumping water onto it which then fills buckets to carry the wheel around, Chase said.
The rotation of the water wheel also provides other benefits by putting oxygen back into the river, and thus improving the water quality.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.voanews.com ...
Even 50K lbs. per day sounds like a stretch.
“And it only cost $800,000!”
Lucky it wasn’t considered “modern art”, the price would have been 1.2 million. (It does look like a good idea. Not a $800,000 idea, but still a good idea)
They are slow. I just had an idea - how about a pontoon boat with extra capacity to dump the stuff into (like the grain harvesteors). The pontoon boat gets full, another one takes it’s place.
The harvesters are expensive and rare. I’m sure on any given day there are 8 pontoon boats just sitting at their docks.
They're probably counting the wet weight. I noticed in the video a lot of the detritus it picked up was leaves, twigs, and other biological gunk the river would naturally handle on its own. . . Not litter. I'd estimate the litter in each "scooperful" to be about 10-15%. Dry weight? A lot less.
Keep that sucker close to the docks and I’ll happily pay him $5 a pound for the Jimmies he scoops off the pilings. I’m a Maryland boy and always wanted to run a crab shack.
Yes you are right. I’m sorry. Credit to the Costners!
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