Recycling and Disposal Solutions is now sorting recyclables and organics from bagged municipal solid waste at its new AI-powered facility in Portsmouth, Virginia, the latest development in its ongoing collaboration with AMP.
RDS has been processing recycling at its Portsmouth location since 2005, but most MSW went to the landfill. Last year, it built a 33,000-square-foot building at its existing site to process about 150 tons of MSW a day.
Numerous MRFs have adopted AI-powered sorters from AMP, but AMP ONE is meant to be an interconnected, facility-scale system instead of an individual piece of sorting equipment. The AMP ONE sortation system, designed to be co-located with landfills and transfer stations, separates bagged trash into mixed recyclables, organics and residue streams in a process AMP describes as “zero manual sortation.” The technology will help RDS divert about 60% of “landfill-bound material” when paired with RDS’s existing recycling systems and organics management programs, the company said in a news release.
Joe Benedetto, president of RDS, said the construction of the AI-powered MSW sorting facility helps extend the life of nearby landfills while reducing disposal costs and lowering its environmental impact.
“We’ve been early and enthusiastic adopters of advanced technologies to increase recovery and landfill diversion, drive down processing costs for local governments, and generate data for continuous facility improvement,” he said in a statement, adding that AMP was a “natural fit to partner on this project … especially as local communities close their recycling programs due to increasing costs.”
Matanya Horowitz, AMP’s founder and CEO, said AMP’s technology is designed to be “resilient to contamination and can more easily go after dirtier material streams.” He sees Portsmouth as a blueprint for other municipalities dealing with stagnant recycling rates. “This presents a new opportunity to expand recycling — one that works for existing waste infrastructure assets,” he said in a statement.
The Portsmouth facility was built as a commercial-scale pilot, and AMP now aims “to deploy this technology around the country in communities that have limited landfill capacity or struggling blue bin programs,” added Carling Spelhaug, AMP’s director of corporate communications, in an email.
RDS has previously partnered with AMP on other facility projects, also announcing in May that it installed an AMP ONE system at the Pitt County Recycling Center in Greenville, North Carolina. That installation will help RDS to process approximately 10,000 tons of single-stream and commercial recycling starting sometime this month, according to a news release.
RDS purchased the facility and began its modernization efforts after it was awarded a processing contract from Pitt County in July 2023. The county had previously contracted with Eastern Carolina Vocational Center for more than 30 years, but the nonprofit did not renew the contract in 2023, citing increased service costs. RDS says its partnership with AMP will help preserve recyclables processing capabilities in the county.
In 2019, RDS purchased its first AI-powered sorting system from AMP, which it says helped make its Roanoke, Virginia, facility safer and more efficient. The companies say they plan to continue collaborating on other projects.
