RDS upgrades second facility with Amp sorting system

Recycling Disposal Services (RDS), based in Roanoke, Virginia, is installing artificial intelligence- (AI-) powered sortation systems at its material recovery facility (MRF) in Portsmouth, Virginia.  

The company is employing a system from Louisville, Colorado-based Amp, using its technology to extract mixed recyclables and organic material from municipal solid waste (MSW) for further processing at the Portsmouth MRF. 

In 2023, RDS completed a new 33,000-square-foot building at the existing site in Portsmouth, which has provided local recycling services since 2005. RDS installed an Amp One system and began processing MSW in the facility late last year, and the company says this project demonstrates the Amp One system’s capacity for sorting MSW into salable commodities. 

RELATED: Amp Robotics rebrands 

With three full-scale facilities and more than 400 AI-systems deployed across North America, Asia and Europe, AMPs technology says to offer a solution to waste sortation and changes the fundamental economics of recycling. 

With the Amp One system, the facility is processing 150 tons per day of local MSW with over 90 percent uptime, according to RDS. The company says this level of unprecedented reliability for mixed waste sorting systems at this scale and footprint was not previously feasible economically. 

“At RDS, 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,” RDS President Joe Benedetto says. “Amp delivers best-in-class sorting solutions, and it was a natural fit to partner on this project and pioneer an economical way of capturing the value in our waste, especially as local communities close their recycling programs due to increasing costs.”  

The new conveyor replaces the original sort-line, which previously processed material through pick-pull and hand material separation.  

Designed to be located with landfills and transfer stations, the Amp One system separates bagged material into its component parts of mixed recyclables, organics and residue. Equipped with this technology, the RDS facility claims to be capable of diverting more than 60 percent of landfill-bound material when paired with organics management and mixed recyclables sorting systems. 

“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,” Amp founder and CEO Matanya Horowitz says. “To move the industry forward, we’ve designed technology that’s resilient to contamination and can more easily go after dirtier material streams. 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.”