Innovative thinking leads to a cleaner Baltimore
BALTIMORE—One day last year, Mike Martino, a gas operator for Baltimore Gas and Electric, was walking across the company’s Spring Gardens campus when he noticed a waterway filled with trash from farther upstream.
“All that trash was getting into storm drains, threatening to reach the nearby tributary,” BGE spokesperson Jarrett Carter Sr. told American Gas. “He wanted to find a way to stop the trash in its tracks. He envisioned using a machine to catch and collect the trash, like one already in use at the city’s Inner Harbor a couple of miles away. But the machine had to be smaller than the one at the harbor; it had to fit into a storm drain on the BGE campus.”
The result is TED, a “trash elimination device” that keeps litter from more than 60 acres of stormwater runoff out of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River, listed as impaired—due to trash—by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Since its initial pilot run in November 2017, TED has collected more than 450 pounds of trash.
Trash collection and environmental protection are not explicit parts of Martino’s job description. But respecting and caring for natural resources in the community is deeply ingrained in BGE’s corporate culture.
“We’re always mindful of the ways BGE can be a positive example of corporate environmental stewardship,” said Martino. “Baltimore is an amazing city and deserves all of our best work in making sure that it remains beautiful for generations to come.”
That company culture helps to explain why Martino and many other BGE employees volunteered their time to bring TED to fruition. BGE’s commitment to environmental stewardship also aligns with the goals of its parent company, Exelon Corporation. Exelon is the No. 1 zero-carbon energy provider in America.
It won’t be long before TED gets a sibling. “Toward the end of this year, we’re hopeful that we’ll have another trash cage built on another part of the campus in another waterway on our property,” Carter told American Gas. “That’s currently in the design phase.
“We take great pride in innovations like this,” he added. “Improving our environment is not only a pillar of our corporate mission statement—it’s something everyone is thinking about.”