The AMP ONE system, pictured here at a RDS facility in Virginia, sorts bagged material into mixed recyclables, organics and residue. | Courtesy of AMP
Recycling and Disposal Solutions of Virginia launched an AI-powered system from equipment supplier AMP that is sorting mixed recyclables and organic material from municipal solid waste at one of its facilities.
RDS completed a new 33,000-square-foot building in 2023 at its existing site in Portsmouth, Virginia, where recycling operations have been running since 2005. It installed an AMP ONE system in late 2023. RDS and AMP have worked together since 2017.
The AMP ONE system, in combination with other equipment, makes the Portsmouth facility “an industry first,” according to a press release. It’s currently processing 150 tons daily of mixed MSW and has over 90% uptime, an “unprecedented level of reliability for mixed waste sorting systems at a scale and footprint that was not previously feasible economically.”
The AMP ONE system is designed to be co-located with landfills and transfer stations, as it sorts bagged material into mixed recyclables, organics and residue. It can divert more than 60% of landfill-bound material when paired with organics management and mixed recyclables sorting systems, according to the release.
The system can also be continually configured because instead of using screens and eddy currents, it uses jet sorters that can be re-programmed in real time to target different materials.
Matanya Horowitz, AMP founder and CEO, said in the press release that the “economic and environmental opportunity in extracting value from the municipal solid waste stream is massive, and innovative sortation is key to unlocking this market.”
“To move the industry forward, we’ve designed technology that’s resilient to contamination and can more easily go after dirtier material streams,” Horowitz added. “We see the success of the facility in Portsmouth as a blueprint for other municipalities looking to extend the life of their landfills and reach ambitious diversion targets. Given that recycling rates have been stagnant over the last decade, this presents a new opportunity to expand recycling – one that works for existing waste infrastructure assets.”
Joe Benedetto, president of RDS, said the company has always 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.”
AMP was “a natural fit to partner on this project,” Benedetto added, which he hopes helps “pioneer an economical way of capturing the value in our waste, especially as local communities close their recycling programs due to increasing costs.”
RDS also has facilities in Roanoke, Virginia, in Greenville, North Carolina, and in Athens, Georgia.