SUFFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Trouble with what to do with trash in Hampton Roads could be solved with the help of robots and artificial intelligence.

The Southeastern Public Service Authority is currently evaluating proposals from private companies that would provide alternative waste disposal methods in order to help extend the life of the southside’s regional landfill.

Daily tonnage to the site off Route 58, outside of downtown Suffolk, has increased dramatically in last 18 months, with the demise and now closure of the Wheelabrator Portsmouth waste-to-energy facility — so much so that trash is being diverted to private landfills in an effort to conserve as much space as possible.

SPSA Executive Director Dennis Bagley confirms that, if new solutions aren’t found soon, the landfill could be completely out of space in less than 40 years.

A potential solution is already being tested in one local city.

“Citizens should be confident that SPSA is going to manage the waste, and there’s a place to put the waste,” Bagley said. “We’ve been working on this. … We look at these challenges as opportunities, and we think that this is an opportunity to change the way we do business and and make this a sustainable operation.”

The stinky situation

SPSA, which operates the landfill and manages dumps for Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Franklin, Isle of Wight County and Southampton County, has operated much of the same way for nearly four decades.

Trash would be picked up by the eight municipalities, taken to transfer stations, and a majority of it would then be taken to the Wheelabrator.

The Wheelabrator would burn roughly 85% of the waste and use it to make steam and electricity for Norfolk Naval Shipyard. The ash would then head to the landfill to be used to cover the trash each day.

The relationship between SPSA and WIN Waste, which owns Wheelabrator, was scheduled to run through 2027.

However in 2021, when the Navy announced it would be constructing its own natural gas plant to power the shipyard, Bagley knew trouble was on the horizon.

“There’s so much revenue being produced from the steam,” Bagley said. “And if they can’t sell that steam, then they’re not making money. And we knew we already was going to close at that point.”

The December 2022 fire only made matters worse, with the plant only able to process a fraction of what they had been. On June 30, it closed for good and is scheduled to be imploded next year.

The 480,000 tons of waste SPSA takes in annually would fill up the available space in the landfill before a new cell can open in 2027.

“So we’ve been diverting waste since, the 16th of December of 2022,” Bagley said.

SPSA has been taking some of the trash to Hampton’s Bethel Landfill, and some waste is going to Waverly’s Atlantic Landfill.

“But the cost of hauling the waste that distance and the environmental impacts from greenhouse gases, really is driving the decision to try to maximize our capacity here in the regional landfill, but yet save enough space to make sure that we have space available through 2027,” Bagley said.

However 2027 is only the first loaming date that concerns Bagley. The second is 2061.

The Environmental Protection Agency is not keen on letting the Suffolk landfill expand any further, according to Bagley. In fact, SPSA must place 300 of the 830-acre facility into an environmental easement in order to permit nearly 100 additional acres of cells for use.

“If we don’t change this, this facility will close in 2061, regardless of what we do unless we reduce the amount of waste coming into to the landfill,” Bagley said.

A sustainable solution?

Earlier this year, SPSA released a request for proposals for firms who believe they can help. They received six responses back.

A majority of them have a common theme: they would not only address trash, but another issue the region has been grappling with — recycling.

Recycling costs have skyrocketed in recent years, leading some communities to do away with curbside service.

In Hampton Roads, Chesapeake has been collecting trash only since mid-2022.

This adds more trash to the landfill, according to Bagley.

But a recent study conducted by SPSA found Chesapeake isn’t much different than communities that still do collect curbside recycling. Around 60% of the waste currently going to the landfill on the Southside is recyclable.

“Some of that is organics, plastics, paper, metal,” Bagley said. “And we believe that, through this RFP (request-for-proposals), we’re going to be able to decrease the amount of waste coming into the landfill and increase our recycling, by double at least.

For the most part, each of the companies that have responded to SPSA are looking to move forward with a model which allows trash and recyclables to be placed in the same can and collected in the same truck.

Once at the landfill, robots and different types of sorting equipment, along with artificial intelligence, would do the separating.

“Remove those recyclables from every resident’s trash, not just those who choose to recycle,” Bagley said. “So, we believe that there’s real possibilities here to make a make a huge difference in the amount of recyclables that we’re able to produce in the region and decrease the amount of waste coming to the regional landfill.”

Trash in Portsmouth is currently being dealt this way by Recycling and Disposal Solutions of Virginia (RDS).

In May, AMP Robotics Corp. debuted their AMP ONE system that can process 150 tons per day and sort it all into salable commodities.

“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,” said Joe Benedetto, president of RDS. “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.” 

SPSA could move forward with a similar operation at their landfill, according to Bagley.

While he said it may drive up costs in short-term for the new technology, long-term it will be a savings.

“I’m not in the economic development business, but I’m smart enough to know that if you don’t have a place to put waste, people are not going to come here,” Bagley said. “And if you got a good, solid waste management program that’s environmentally-friendly, it draws people here.”

Bagley hopes an award can be made in the coming months.