tributaries, to “go to the cities in the delta (Dhaka
and Kolkata) and deploy in the small streams
of these cities.”
After I returned from India, I visited John
Kellett, the inventor of Mr. Trash Wheel, at his
marina in an inlet south of Baltimore. He was
finishing work on his fourth trash wheel, which
later was deployed on a stream near the down-
town football stadium of the Baltimore Ravens.
The four have collected 3.5 million pounds of
trash and dramatically transformed the har-
bor’s appearance. But Kellett was skeptical of
a global effort.
“It’s good that the interest in it is strong, but
it’s just one piece of the puzzle,” he said. “I don’t
think we’re ever going to clean up the oceans
by tackling one river at a time. It needs to go
hand in hand with policy changes and behavior
changes as well.”W
ASTE COLLECTION IN
India would be even
more dysfunctional
if it weren’t for the
“informal sector”: the
army of independent
operators who collect
plastic waste from households to sell for recy-
cling, and the waste pickers, who scavenge at
dumps or on the streets.
These workers, estimated at nearly 1.5 million,
are one reason you don’t see many plastic bottlesPLASTIC RUNS THROUGH IT 105