 Happy Friday. I'm Kaui Lukas here on Hawaii is my mainland every Friday at 3 p.m. think-tech Hawaii This week I have a Live guest I have Jeff Ha from Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii who does the waste aversion program and We have live via Skype John Kellett from Clearwater Mills in Baltimore, Maryland. John is the inventor of an amazing piece of machinery called a water Wheel no, it's a trash wheel It's a water wheel that moves trash that takes trash and Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii along with surfwriter Foundation Oahu and 808 cleanups have just completed a Crowd funder to raise the money to bring John To Honolulu and do a feasibility study that has just happened this week, and you guys did an awesome job Let's show your video The Oluwai canal represents the main source of ocean pollution entering the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii This is our opportunity to do something about it The trash water wheel Represents a tangible working solution to diverting trash from entering the ocean since 2014 the Baltimore trash water wheel has removed 420,000 single-use plastic water bottles. It's removed 320,000 styrofoam containers and it's removed 7.5 million cigarette butts not only will the trash water wheel remove hundreds of tons of debris annually It will provide a visible tool that can inspire us to reduce our use of the trash causing materials That we consume on a daily basis Before we can bring the trash water wheel to Honolulu an official Feasibility study must be conducted before we can move forward to the next steps So now comes the fun part we need your help to fund this feasibility study Please go to our Indiegogo campaign right below Donate a dollar or heck, please go ahead and just donate the whole thing with your support We can keep the Oluwai clean so that it's not emptying out hundreds of tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean Do it for clean beaches do it for a clean ocean do it for our future Yeah, yeah that so a lot of that footage came from our last beach cleanup, which was kind of the Waikiki to The alawai harbor So, yeah, it was good good good cleanup could turn out a lot of fun was had and you guys do that sort of thing pretty regularly Yeah, we host four large-scale cleanups annually Three here on a Wahoo and then one on an outer island Awesome, so the the this joint venture is now ready to go What do you what do you have in planned for for John? Coming here So yeah, look you mentioned John's gonna be coming to do a feasibility study What some that entails and is gonna be Looking at the site of where the the trash water wheels proposed to go Assessing that site Also assessing the trash and you know debris that we're dealing with the amounts what types things like that As well as kind of dealing with permitting and fees and things of that nature Communicating with the city Kind of just looking at gig attaining a nutshell of what it's gonna take to make this project happen You know from the physical to the you know the paperwork and things like that Can you tell me what support you have from from the city so far? Yeah, the city's been really Good to work with on this project. They've been very receptive to it The city and county is pledged. I believe it's around 350,000 or so Which is roughly about half of what it would take to make it happen I'd you know, we'll know a bit more once the feasibility study is done But um, that's that's that's huge. It's a very like said generous thing. Yeah And John John are you there? I am hi John. So how did you? Start this whole thing with a solar powered water wheel that removes trash. What's the story? Well, I started this because because I worked on Baltimore Harbor for 20 years and we have a property very similar to what Hawaii has in the alawakene and that is trash debris is coming into our beautiful harbor and making a mess up and I watched this for the 20 years on the harbor and I Decided we had to do something about it. So I went to the city and I said we needed to make sure that Impressions people have of our heart and they said we're over which is and after think about it every day I'm gonna work. This is the idea. I can So now you were wise enough to make it incredibly practical and is it's design Can you kind of go over in in a nutshell how it works? We have the footage from the storm We can show that later, but can you can you talk about how is a practical matter? How easy is it for you to run? How many people does it take? How much? Energy what what do we what do we what are we embracing here? well, the machine is actually very simple the since at the mouth of the river or in the case of Hawaii it would see now and We let the trash come to us because it's the rainfall that pushes the trash down from the streets the parking lots and Anywhere it is on head and washes it down into the river Actually out in the bush and makes causes problems off the long way so What we do is intercept the trash before it gets out to the harbor eventually into the coach and The way we do that is we have containment those of the trash to the machine water wheel Turns with flow of the water. There's not enough water We supplement that solar power pumps and pump water in up into the buckets of the water wheel and The turning of the water wheel provides power for the rakes that break the trash up on the conveyor And then they could bear to lift the trash from the water and dump into a dumpster the dumpsters in separate floating bars and it's full We push it to a Transfer facility in our case is a book ramp push it to the boat Takes the full And we back to be filled up We have two dumpster boxes the dumpster one's full we bring the end of Polish full one out Push the one in to be filled up So it's a very simple team and it's extremely well two years here more 400 Is this something that's running all the time? It runs most of this it is We you know But there's not enough turn the wheel on the solar And we can get both of those pumps from our phones We have an interception on the machine and we have up eight pumps And if there's a lot of trash turn all the eights a lot of the time hang on one Just so people can see working. There's no trash there I'm having a little Trouble hearing you at times. So if I say something funny, it's because I didn't hear you quite right Did you say how long it takes for you to to swap out the the barges and I don't think so, right? You didn't how hard is that? It doesn't take long at all because we just bring an empty dumpster out and we just slide the new Now it takes a while as a boat ramp three miles away. So we have to push the dumpster to the boat ramp But if it's closer, it's quicker. We probably won't have that problem here. Do you think? Um, that's yeah, I mean being right near the the alloy You know, we've got a lot of access here, but that's something that I think we're going to be looking at in the feasibility study is What the logistics are of actually removing the trash from the water wheel? Um And we've talked about a few different ideas, but as to how it's exactly going to work yet at nothing's nothing's concrete if you will Okay, and and back to you john talk about the the education I I understand that there's there's been a significant That's a significant component of what's happening now. How does that work? Absolutely. I think almost as important as picking up the trash is Generating fairness that the that this trash is causing a huge problem And that everyone departed the solution but not You putting your trash Okay By disposing of your trash, obviously You can prevent it from going into the harbor by recycling By making sure that your trash stands actually And doing everything takes to make sure that your trash doesn't end up in the water Do you have any way of measuring the impact of that education? I Over time I hope we do I'm one of the nice things about the water bills. We do keep very accurate Uh, analysis the composition that's coming down For instance, we we do Sam and we're able to get a good estimate how many secret butts Plastic bottles so many styrofoam so many plastic We're picking up all right All right, go ahead throw some numbers at us if you know them let let us know what kind of numbers you got We've picked up seven million But seven and a half And uh, wow half a million plastic bottles And Hundreds of thousands of styrofoam cups. I don't have all the persons without my head, but they're pretty staggering Um, and how fast can it accumulate? Um, how fast can you fill up one of your dumpsters? I think I I heard they were 15 cubic feet. Is that right? 15 cubic yards and they hold just five times Each one and we've had filled us as an hour And but that just depends on how the range and how fast the practice is coming so We filled as many as 12 in one day but We've also had to sit there for two without being Because we hadn't ranked what we originally don't Okay, well, you know john, I think um now is probably a good time for us to take a little break And when we come back, we're going to show the video of your um big stormwater event and people can see this uh the wheel in action and then we'll talk some more about it Sounds great. All right. See you soon Hi, I'm donna blanchard. I'm the host of center stage which is on wednesdays at two o'clock here on think tech On center stage. I talk with artists about not only what they do and how they do it But the meat of the conversation for me is why they do it why we go through this a lot of us Are not making our livings doing this and a lot of us would do this With our last dying breath if we had to that choice and that's what I love to talk to people about I hope you enjoy watching it and I hope you get inspired because there's an artist inside g2 Join us on center stage at two o'clock on wednesdays. Bye Hi, i'm ethan alan host of likable science on think tech hawaii I hope you'll join me each friday afternoon as we explore the amazing world of science We bring on interesting guests scientists from all walks of life from all walks of science To talk about the work they do why they do it and more why it's interesting to you What the science really means to your life its impacts on you how it's shaping the world around you and why you should care about it I do hope to join me every friday at 2 p.m. For likable science Welcome back to think tech hawaii's hawaii is my mainland. I'm kawaii lucas here every friday today I have two guests one is jeff hawes from Sustainable coastline hawaii who does their waste diversion program and the other one we have via skype john kellett from clearwater mills who has invented and fabricated and will be coming to hawaii soon to Try out their solar water wheel that moves trash out of the floating trash This doesn't take care of all of our problems, but it sure takes care of a lot of the yuck that we see And and maybe jeff you can talk a little about the the floating Trash problem versus other trash and then we'll go see how this water wheel works Sure. Yeah, um, I think what we're experiencing here is a lot like what john had and continues to have the another problems in baltimore Um, it's it's just a lot of everyday trash plastic bottles Styrofoam containers Plastic bags cigarette butts, you know things that float. That's one of the main You know one of the main things of you know sources of items of trash that we're finding in the alawaii and the alawaii is actually the main source of Pollution into the pacific from hawaii And so, you know, we're looking at just getting a lot of that, you know that that rubbish that is flowing down Mostly when it rains, you know, it's pushed into the storm drains out into the alawai We're looking at gathering as much of that as we can Before it actually gets out into the currents and it takes off. So um, as far as you know things There isn't a ton of trash that's floating underneath the surface per se, you know, if it's underneath the surface Usually it's sunk. Um, it's not going to be able to address things like, you know chemical pollutants and stuff like that Yeah, yeah, but it's it's gonna, you know, so it's not the solution Um, it's just it's a small part of you know a spoke in the wheel if you will Seems like a pretty pretty spectacular spoke though. Let's see the video of your, um, baby in action So here we are on the jones falls in, uh, falterwars inner harbour on a rainy day standing on the water wheel And uh, which is behind me here. You could see this is the water wheel being turned by the current of the jones falls, which is flowing very rapidly because we just had pretty large rainstorm And that wheel is turning this conveyor belt that is picking up All of this trash that is flowing down the jones falls and you can see We've got a lot of plastic bottles. We've got a lot of styrofoam cups A lot of just kind of random pieces of styrofoam And I believe the water wheel has just accumulated its first tire Uh, so as you can see it moves kind of slowly But slow and steady in this case is just fine Um, and we are picking up all of this trash Carries it to the dumpster which we can I can run around and show you that This is the dumpster barge. It's in the back of the water wheel And we can see it's already picked up a lot of debris Already some very large logs coming down the jones falls, but you know an amazing amount Of plastic bottles and styrofoam cups and cigarette butts too And you can watch as it kind of dramatically Sneaks its way over the lip there And big logs coming I don't want to wait to see that tire come in here Stand back a little I suppose Maybe off to the side even John how um How full was this dumpster when the storm started? It was empty So this is all just from the storm that cut pretty much started Do you know when it started? So it's just since 7 a.m. And it's probably about 9 30 or so now Build up our dumpster with trash It's an incredible device That's amazing I cannot wait to see that here really Uh, so we're our trash. Um, I don't know if we'll have those big logs floating down But we will we will be definitely be able to fill it up How how many people does it take to run this thing? How how much of an effort is it? Well, it doesn't take very much much manpower. It's um Again depends on the rain stays. We're not doing anything there. We're just Letting it run and monitoring our phones Um, when it rains hard rains out there Change the dumpsters every hour and a half or so and sometimes those big blocks do need a little guiding to conveyer and sometimes a raft as forms that Be kind of broken up, but overall it doesn't take a huge amount of man the machine does the workforce and um The uh You know, we just keep it down at all the time. We also monitor it To uh, Sam was coming down the river. We'll sample how many Styrofoam so many plastic bottles are in the panel That way we can keep the record of what we're picking. So do you do, um, do you switch? Do you Sort the trash um, you were talking here, uh, Jeff about when you guys have cleanups you're able to sort the trash and and Recycle the recyclables. Do you do that also in maryland? No, we're not don't recycle the trash. There's um, we have a challenge that a lot of this is um, basically a hazardous material and sewage well We have hypodermic tunnels and all their nice stuff We have to pick through But there there is the opportunity to recycle and in fact we've sent on from trash to germany where they're trying to figure out the methods of BMW um Auto companies working on to figure out how to Trash into our parts. So we're working but right now The trash goes waste to energy facility where it's turned into entry Which is not as great as something but it's It's better than the ocean Uh, are there any other trash wheels out in the world besides yours and in baltimore? We're right now A second trash goes to baltimore also work. I just got back from Looks like we're This is not a problem Or Hawaii It's a world It's um, and like Jeff's it's not the solution. It's just something that helps us Control it can come up with a solution which is to keep it from getting the other ways to be It's a it's a good method of finding What's coming to her and a good method sure it doesn't end up out Where it causes all kinds of problems so Water wheels kind of beat the savior But it's gonna help us reach the goal of making sure that our trash doesn't kill our oceans Okay, so we're looking at one of the slides of the from your power point and um I'm gonna go ahead and put those up on my blog kawelukas.com when I um, uh, post the The video of our our chat today That'll be available for everybody to look at so Jeff have have the plans come far enough to know how we're going to handle the tracer. We just really at the at the beginning Um, somewhat at the beginning the plans right now are a lot along those lines You know, I don't know that we're going to go as far as sorting it Kind of similar things, you know the alawaii some of that water is is It's a little bit um questionable if you want to be digging around in that trash So, you know right now initially it's probably going to go the route of most of trash, which is to h power And then incinerate and turn into power for the island We you know on our plans is to kind of log the trash Keep track of you know What numbers and stuff like that? I don't think that's going to involve Sorting through every single piece of trash and you know taking a tally But we're going to establish a system so we can kind of have those numbers so we can start to get an idea of Um, you know what types of pollution we're we're dealing with and use that really largely as an education for You know an education tool So when people come to visit the waterway we can say hey, we're pulling you know x amount of Um single use plastic water bottles out of here and and styrofoam, you know food containers things like that So hopefully it'll turn that light on and people said that oh, I use that every day and And you know that's going into the like it just you know, that's that's the ultimate goal is to try to raise the Awareness and get people to think and Change their you know consumption habits and things like that for a little bit more responsible You know approach to it So the one of the things I loved was the invention of this character the mr. Trashwheel Um that they they did in baltimore and with the with the big eyes and they make it look like a shell And it's really cute. Do we have do we have somebody working on a personality for the honolulu trash? Yeah, you know, I can say we have some very very creative People at sustainable cosines at surf rider at 808 cleanups. There's a lot of really, you know Clever minds so I can guarantee it'll take on a personality, but we might have to get to know it first before we get that far Okay, so the um the timeline um, you've got the money now as of this week and again Congratulations, I think it was less than two weeks for you to raise that money Six or seven days is really quick, which is you know, that's a reflection of the community and how You know, they want, you know, how they're getting behind this project. How you know, that's That's the approval right there. I think by the you know, our captive audience So in our last two minutes, okay, so there's we've got 350,000 We have enough to bring john here for the feasibility stuff Then we had the half of the the actual project cost But that the the other half the other 350,000 and that's gonna have to be Privately Yeah, we're gonna look at a you know, a combination of partnerships donors Probably do you know another a crowdfunding campaign as well I'm you know, kind of a continuation So once we actually get to the fundraising, you know, it'll be a combination of those three sources Okay, so that sounds like a really big project I'm so glad that you have these really strong partners With surfrider foundation and 808 cleanups What what they've done in in baltimore really John is is just terrific. Maybe you can just tell us maybe one of your your favorite stories of of What the trash wheel has done? We only have a minute but go for it Well one time we I was watching video and actually saw a Somebody's pet python had gotten washed down river And climbed up and come up the conveyor and climbed up onto the deck and I I saw it on the video and I said I said to my uh F may the worst I said, I think we got a snake on the deck and It was late at night. He said we'll go down and look in the morning In the morning, he goes down and finds python hurled up off the solar charge control where it's a one place on deck and Called the national program to come to this non-native season Thank you so much. I look forward to meeting you here in honolulu and thank you Jeff for joining us today There's lots more for this story Thanks for having me on the show