Plastic pollution is worse than ever, with scientists recently announcing horrific levels of micro plastics found in Arctic sea ice, but innovative new ways of cleaning it up may give us a sliver of hope in this fight. A familiar googly-eyed sight in Baltimore for years now, floating plastic-cleaning devices known as ‘Mr. Trash Wheel’ and ‘Professor Trash Wheel’ are set to spread to new cities. Meanwhile, an environmental startup called Urban Rivers is gamifying pollution cleanup with a remote trashbot anyone can control from the internet.

Created by John Kellet, Mr. Trash Wheel and Professor Trash Wheel are a pair of solar- and hydro-powered water wheels based in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, collectively pulling millions of pounds of trash out of the water since they were first installed in 2014. Both designs feature ribbed white canopies that make them look like gigantic shellfish, an effect magnified by the addition of painted eyes. They’re operated as part of the Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative, and they’re so successful, people around the world are taking notice.

Each is capable of collecting up to 38,000 pounds of debris in a single day, sucking waste from the notoriously polluted harbor up a conveyer belt that leads to a dumpster barge. The collected material is then hauled away and separated by volunteers, with some of it incinerated to help produce electricity for the city of Baltimore. When the current isn’t strong enough to power them, the water wheels run on backup solar panel arrays.

If you’re wondering whether the trash wheels have ever picked up unintended objects, the answer is yes – once it caught a python, and another time, it drew a kayaker into its current.

On a much smaller scale, but still pretty cool, Urban Rivers’ Trash Robot encourages mass participation in trash cleanup, even from your couch. Spend just a couple minutes piloting the bot from your computer, anywhere in the world, and you’ll be adding to a collective effort while having some fun. Players navigate the bot toward floating trash and get points for snagging as much litter as possible within a set time period.

According to its creators, the biggest challenge in maintaining this project is preventing vandalism and theft of the bots, which they attempt to control with GPS trackers. The Chicago-based nonprofit demonstrated the project in June 2017 and continues to raise funds for future expansions.

Most game furniture looks like it belongs in a musty basement smelling of spilled beer and body odor, but high end tables for billiards, foosball, ping pong, shuffleboard and other popular indoor games are made to fit right into luxury environments, sometimes even complete with plated gold details. Some are even works of art in their own right, doubling as sculpture, while others bring games that haven’t changed much in decades a little more firmly into the current century.

Ping Pong FM Interactive Table Tennis Jukebox

This ‘fun musical take’ on table tennis by English designer Mark Wheeler lets you choose a song to set the tempo of your game, and the song only keeps playing as long as you manage to keep the ball in play. Drop it, and your game is over. “Usually music listening experiences are strictly about being as true to the original recording as possible. But why can’t listening to a record be as playful and interactive as a live performance?” says Wheeler.

Luxury Game Tables by Adriano Design

A gold-plated crystalline foosball table is among the ‘luxury’ game options offered by Adriano Design, an Italian-based company operating as both ‘Calma e Gesso’ and ‘TECKELL.’ The Cristallino comes complete with 24-karat-gold plated players – because what else would the owner of a $10 million estate put in their game room? Other offerings include the ‘Filotto’ pool table and the Lungolinea ping pong table, all made in the company’s signature crystal-clear glass. They even produce child-sized ‘Angolo’ foosball table models for kids, which spare no stylish details.

Isamu Noguchi Chess Table

Considered a seminal work of early organic modernism, Isamu Noguchi’s chess table is technically a functional sculpture, presented along with a set of game pieces Noguchi also designed. It debuted at ‘The Imagery of Chess’ in 1944, a show organized by Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst. The table was put into production in 1947, but only a few dozen examples exist. One was auctioned in Los Angeles in 2016, selling for over $100,000.

Woolsey Shuffleboard Table by Sean Woolsey

Long, narrow and sleek, the Woolsey Shuffleboard Table by designer Sean Woolsey features a rift-sawn white oak top finished with epoxy resin and solid black walnut legs, which hide leg levelers. The table comes with 4 white and 4 black pucks, lots of shuffleboard salt and a magnetic wall mount for the pucks when not in use. Prices, unsurprisingly, start at $10K.

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Barely completed in time, venues at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are going south in a big way now that the athletes have left.

The Games of the XXXI Olympiad – Rio 2016 for short – were meant to do for Brazil what the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing did for China: announce the host nation’s arrival on the world stage.

Critics of Rio’s winning bid were placated by that old chestnut; “hosting the Games will bring improved infrastructure and services that will benefit residents far into the future.” So how’s that working out, less than a year after the circus left town?

Rio’s Olympics weren’t all that popular with cariocas (Rio de Janiero-ians) from the get-go, and let’s recall that Brazil’s economy was booming back in October of 2009 when the Games were awarded. In 2014, a massive financial scandal coupled with the onset of Brazil’s worst economic recession since 1990 put a huge financial squeeze on preparations for the Games. With funds tighter than a gymnast’s tendons, corners were cut and, well, you know the story – it’s a wonder the Games were as problem-free as they appeared on TV.

Good thing Rio’s poorer residents had so much to look forward to once the Games ended. Too bad their hopes focused on looting the lightly-guarded facilities of anything valuable – payback, of a sort, for their sense of disenfranchisement and a conviction that the only ones to benefit from the Olympic Games were the rich and powerful. These images depict the jewel in Rio’s Olympic crown, Maracanã Stadium, mere months after the Games ended with a bang at the Closing Ceremonies.

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Shed no racket tears for these abandoned tennis courts as there’s no bawls in tennis… OK, that’s out of line but these courts ARE out of service.

Looking like a set from The Walking Dead, this precariously covered tennis club in Europe’s Benelux region appears to have been abandoned twice – once by tennis players, then by the artist who owns (or owned) the place.

The former club must have been more than just a private backyard court – at least one line judge’s chair can be seen, shunted off to the side. Odd that the artist adaptively reusing the club as a studio would save such a specialized piece of furniture. Kudos to Flickr user Tunebm, who somehow was able to access the abandoned court in early July of 2010.

Wimble-don’t

Flickr user John Haslam (foxypar4) titles the above November 2008-dated photo “Malta in audacious bid to stage ATP Masters Series Final!,” and you can bet that’s an event anyone would gladly pay to see. Set into the long-dry moat surrounding the ancient fortified city of Mdina, the court has at least one thing going for it: chances of a successful Ottoman invasion are very unlikely.

The Open is Closed

Blue-blooded businessman and banker William du Pont, Jr (1896-1965) was quite the sportsman in his day. In the depths of the Great Depression, he had a grandiose recreation center housing basketball and badminton courts, a bowling alley, a swimming pool and a large clay tennis court built at his Bellevue Hall, Delaware estate.

By the early 1970’s, none of du Pont’s heirs had any interest in the estate’s deteriorating sports facilities nor the expense required for their upkeep. The property was purchased by the state of Delaware in 1976, opened to the public under the name of Bellevue State Park… and continued its inexorable decay. By 2014 when the above images were taken by Kyle Grantham for The News Journal , the sky-lit tennis court was overgrown with vegetation, infested with wildlife, and had been slated for demolition.

Get A Grip

This gorgeous abandoned tennis court in Herzliya, Israel would appear to have everything but regular maintenance and the odd player or two. According to Flickr user Elinor Zach (who snapped the seaside scene on January 2nd of 2008), “This tennis court used to belong to a hotel that was super posh in the 80s. I wish I could see the characters that used to bounce their little green balls there.” That’s what SHE said.

Net Loss

Flickr user Franck VIALA (Artretros) got down & funky – or should we say, fuzzy – back in September of 2011 when he snapped this shot of an abandoned French tennis court. “An abandoned tennis court where I used to play since I was 10 maybe,” states the photographer, possibly with the pictured tennis ball.

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Most miniature golf courses have 9 or 18 holes per course. These dozen abandoned courses, on the other hand, have more holes than Blackburn, Lancashire.

Flickr user Tom Faulkner (tom faulkner photographs) has apparently done the impossible by turning an abandoned miniature golf course into an oasis of breathtaking beauty. The course is located somewhere in Maryland and though the artificial greens and fairways still reflect hints of their former verdant glory, the true glory of Faulkner’s images comes courtesy of Mother Nature in all her autumnal glory.

Pasture-ized

It’s so annoying when a perfectly good miniature golf course closes its doors and drifts into deterioration and decay. In fact, one might say it really… gets our goat. Kudos to Flickr user Isaac Sachs, who snapped the currently “now serving as a goat pasture” status of the former Scappoose Mini Golf in September of 2013.

Eurotrashed

Flickr user bertolino captured this baaadly overgrown and abandoned miniature golf course on May 2nd of 2009… hey, don’t they have goats in Europe?

Not Milwaukee’s Finest

Dead Kennedys; D K; decay… coincidence? We think not! Flickr user Retinal Fetish brings us these post-apocalyptic images taken in 2006 and 2007 at Willow’s Miniature Golf in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The graffiti’d divider wall looks a little like swiss cheese – gray and moldy swiss cheese but hey, beggers can’t be choosers. Hopefully it won’t attract giant rats.

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