Baltimore’s family of trash-collecting water wheels has grown again. Kind of.

The city of Newport Beach in Southern California has installed a water wheel that collects trash floating down the San Diego Creek.

There’s “no question” the wheels in Baltimore inspired the work in California, said John Pope, a spokesperson for the Newport Beach city manager’s office.

The wheel works largely the same — trash flows down the creek and then up a conveyor belt powered by solar panels and water. Instead of being collected on a floating barge, though, the debris moves up to a dumpster on the shore.

The Newport Beach wheel probably won’t get adorned with googly eyes or be anthropomorphized like the trash wheel family in Baltimore, Pope said.

“It’s a little more low-key,” Pope said. “Ours is going to be more of a quiet workhorse, but it’s still very exciting.”

In a statement, Baltimore’s own Mr. Trash Wheel called the California trash interceptor “totally bodacious.”

“I’m sure they will be scarfing down some gnarly waves of waste, but I hope they get an avocado toast wrapper from time to time too,” the trash eater said in an emailed statement.

The Waterfront Partnership was not involved in the Newport Beach trash wheel, said the organization’s vice president, Adam Lindquist. But they’re very excited to see it.

“Mr. Trash Wheel has captured more than just trash, he has captured the hearts of people around the world. His unique blend of ingenuity, creativity, and quirky sense of humor could only come from Baltimore,” Lindquist said in an email.

Mr. Trash Wheel’s influence is international, too. In 2022, Panama installed a trash-collecting wheel in its capital city to catch waste before it hit the Pacific Ocean. The trash wheels have been part of Baltimore’s effort to improve water quality and clean up the Inner Harbor.

As of last year, the Trash Wheel family had collected more than 5.2 million pounds of trash.

Pope said his city’s trash wheel is situated next to private property, and the owners of that land didn’t want the wheel to be “loud.” The Newport Beach wheel will have an olive green cover so it can blend in a bit with the surrounding land — much different than the white coverings and googly eyes seen in Baltimore.

Despite the quieter character, Pope said, the city thinks the wheel will catch about 80% of all floating trash and debris in the creek. It will take about a year to quantify how successful it’s been, he said.

Meanwhile, in Baltimore, Mr. Trash Wheel was just decked out with a purple Ravens-themed tarp. The football team announced Tuesday a five-year, $3.75 million funding partnership to support the Healthy Harbor Initiative.

“You want guys who aren’t afraid to do the dirty work,” John Harbaugh, the Ravens coach, said in a hype video announcing the partnership.

The only downside, Harbaugh said, is that the wheel “is a little bit of a trash talker.”

The Trash Wheel family has grown to include four interceptors around the harbor. Mr. Trash Wheel — the original, who floats at the end of the Jones Falls — is celebrating his 11th birthday this weekend at The Public Works Experience.