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.
About Baltimore Fishbowl: My weekly columns are a free read published by one of Baltimore’s alternative news sites. If you haven’t seen Fishbowl, please have a look. If you get on the site’s e-mailing list, you’ll get a simple, concise summary of local news each day.
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Dan Rodricks 
thank you Dan. Keep alerting people about this. when I was a girl, I lived in Highland town right behind the natty Bo brewery. I walked the alleys with my wagon picking up bottles so I could get comic books. I had a huge comic book collection and I only had it Because of bottles!
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It seems there are way too many issues we have to resist or protest or react since this regime was elected. And, yet, some are so simple. I’ve lived in places where collecting bottles (I don’t remember saving cans) was the norm. Driving across the United States, my whole family would keep our eyes out for bottles to turn it for money. It’s time to revive this. And since we recycle, how hard would it be to separate the bottles and cans from the paper? Let’s do it!
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