Students Feed Baltimore Trash Wheel Garbage Cake For Its Birthday

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Can you believe it? Baltimore's Mr. Trash Wheel, the water and solar-propelled harbor cleaning powerhouse, just turned two.

The wheel launched in May 2014, and has collected 420 tons of trash and debris from the harbor since then.

To celebrate, students from Waverly Elementary School and Commodore John Rodgers Elementary School joined the Waterfront Partnership's Healthy Harbor Initiative to "feed" the wheel cake and cupcakes made of trash they collected.

Lots of people from around the world are hoping they can host similar celebrations for their wheels in the future, but for now he's still one-of-a-kind.

"We're getting inquiries around the world," says Nate Appleby-Kellett of Clearwater Mills, the company that helped design the wheel. "There's been interest in India, Hawaii, Bali, which is in southeast Asia."

He may get a younger sibling soon, though, since the Waterfront Partnership has been raising money for a Canton wheel. About 80 percent of the funds for the $500,000 wheel have been raised.

We'll see if the newcomer can live up to the googly-eyed Mr. Water Wheel's popularity.

"Mr. Trash Wheel has become a pretty funny character on Twitter," says Leanna Wetmore, of the Waterfront Partnership. "You can follow him. He's gone to number one on Reddit."

Follow @CBSBaltimore on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Facebook