Baltimore's Mr. Trash Wheel earns Guinness record for cleaning river

May 15 (UPI) -- Baltimore's Mr. Trash Wheel, a solar and hydro powered trash interceptor that removes debris from the city's Jones Falls River, was awarded a Guinness World Record for clearing 63.3 tons of garbage in one month.

The googly-eyed trash wheel, invented by Baltimore local John Kellett for the Healthy Harbor Initiative of the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, cleared 63.3 tons of trash from the mouth of the river from April 1 to April 30, 2017, Guinness World Records announced.

Mr. Trash Wheel will appear in the 2020 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records for earning the record for most floating debris removed by a trash receptor in one month.

"Making it into the Guinness World Records is a bittersweet milestone," Adam Lindquist, Waterfront Partnership's director of the Healthy Harbor Initiative, told CBS Baltimore. It's further proof that the trash wheel technology is extremely effective, but it also highlights how much still needs to be done to reduce the amount of litter in the Harbor."

"Our ultimate goal is to put Mr. Trash Wheel out of a job, and for all Baltimoreans to understand how litter impacts our environmental health," Lindquist said.