Could DC be getting its own trash wheel?

So here’s something you might not know about our neighbor to the north — one of Baltimore’s preeminent Twitter personalities is a trash wheel. Actually, there are two of them.

What’s a trash wheel? Both Mr. Trash Wheel and Professor Trash Wheel are trash inceptors (kind of floating dumpsters, if you will) installed in the Baltimore harbor to “eat” trash and thereby clean up the waterways. The contraptions are designed by the company Clearwater Mills, and our sister site Technical.ly Baltimore has reported extensively on their installation and efficacy.

But while cleaning up the environment is wonderful and all, our favorite part of the trash wheels is their social media presence. Mr. Trash Wheel, with his tongue-in-cheek Twitter account and popular reddit AMAs, has set the tone (literally) for social media-based conversation about environmental preservation in the Baltimore harbor. Mr. Trash Wheel, and now also Professor Trash Wheel, makes it fun.

That moment when you realize your one true love is food. pic.twitter.com/4ncQs315vS

— Mr. Trash Wheel (@MrTrashWheel) March 2, 2017

So imagine our delight when we heard that D.C. might be getting a trash wheel of its own.

In an article in DCist, Matt Robinson, an environmental protection specialist at the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, said the city is looking into the possibility of installing a trash wheel in the Anacostia River. It’s just one option being considered, he clarified, as the city searches for something “cost effective” (trash wheels like those in Baltimore run from $400,000 to $900,000).

Can we suggest that, whatever the chosen solution, D.C. take a page from Baltimore’s book and make cleaning up our waterways a personable, social experience?