It’s cool that Baltimore’s Mr. Trash Wheel, the trash interceptor based in the city’s Inner Harbor, is a worldwide celebrity. He’s had some viral moments and enjoyed lots of attention for several years now. But so has all the trash that floats with every rain into the Inner Harbor, a chronic and depressing phenomenon.

It would not be so bad if Maryland instituted a 10-cent deposit on every beverage bottle and can — some of the estimated 5.5 billion of them that people across the state go through every year. There’s legislation to do exactly that in the General Assembly this winter. I have my say about it in my latest column for Baltimore Fishbowl.

With the Trump administration’s all-out assault on environmental regulation and its withdrawal from the vital work against climate change — here’s a free read about that from The New York Times — it’s likely that a lot of us feel powerless right now. I say we can’t give up, and supporting the bottle-and-can deposit bill is one way to resist the cynical and ignorant turn against efforts to save the planet.

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Published by Dan Rodricks

Dan Rodricks is a former long-time columnist for The Baltimore Sun, winner of numerous national and regional journalism awards, a radio and TV personality, podcaster and fly angler. His narrative memoir, “Father’s Day Creek,” was published in May 2019 by Apprentice House at Loyola University Maryland.
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