The Southeastern Public Service Authority has cleared the final hurdle for a deal that will transform the way the region handles trash and recycling in the decades to come.
At a special meeting Monday, SPSA’s board unanimously voted to award a new 20-year contract to Commonwealth Sortation, which will use technology powered by artificial intelligence to help divert waste from the regional landfill.
“There’s probably no more important meeting that SPSA has had in the last 10 years than this,” said board chair Thomas Leahy. It’s “a momentous thing for this region.”
Under the agreement, SPSA will pay the company a minimum of $22.5 million per year. That number could increase depending on the volume of waste.
The deal is the end of a race to find a viable alternative to the regional landfill. It will also likely impact how and whether localities continue curbside recycling.
What’s happening and why
SPSA handles trash for Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Franklin and the counties of Southampton and Isle of Wight.
Until recently, more than 80% of the trash that went through its facilities had been going to the Wheelabrator plant in Portsmouth, where it was burned to produce steam energy.
But that facility closed last year, leaving the waste authority to take roughly 1,000 more tons of trash each day to the landfill in Suffolk.
SPSA is already working to expand the landfill, which would otherwise run out of space late next year.
But the landfill is still set to reach capacity by 2060, with no room to expand because of restricted wetlands, said Dennis Bagley, SPSA’s executive director. Waste would then have to be hauled to private landfills outside the region.
“In my business, it’s like tomorrow; 2060 is right around the corner,” he said at a board meeting last month. “If you're not thinking about it now, you're going to make a huge mistake for the future.”
The goal of the new contract is to extend the landfill's life through the end of this century, while also boosting recycling.
The deal guarantees the company will keep at least half of the waste SPSA collects from going to the landfill.
About 20% of that is in the form of recyclables, using AI systems to pull recyclable materials directly from the trash stream.
Commonwealth Sortation, led by Colorado-based AMP Robotics Corp., has already been doing so, on a small scale, at a pilot plant in Portsmouth.
AMP Robotics founder Matanya Horowitz previously told WHRO the system “basically lets machines see garbage in a way that was very difficult before.”
The company trained these systems to learn “hey, this logo is associated with this type of plastic,” Horowitz said. Or “this kind of shininess is associated with this type of paper.”
The company plans to turn another 30% of the garbage into a reusable, charcoal-like substance called biochar. Organic material, such as food waste, is heated in a specialized kiln. The resulting biochar can be used as soil compost or to make concrete.
Commonwealth Sortation plans to invest roughly $200 million for the project. That includes expanding the pilot facility and building a new one down the road on Victory Boulevard in Portsmouth at the site of the former Wheelabrator plant.
Officials hope to sign the agreement in January. Operations would gradually build up alongside construction, reaching full capacity to process 540,000 tons by 2029.
Ripple effects on recycling
The contract does not directly affect locality-run curbside recycling. But it will likely become more cost-effective for cities to ditch those programs in favor of a single-bin system.
“From an economics standpoint, it doesn't make sense to have citizens recycling in a blue bin and send them to this contractor and then taking everything else and sending it over to this other contractor,” Bagley previously told WHRO.
Cities “could continue to do that and this system would still work. But what makes more sense for member communities and the public is to have all the waste go to one place, and it gets sorted at a much lower cost.”
He noted the planned 20% recycling rate will nearly triple the region’s current average of 7%.
Local officials have long struggled with rising costs for curbside recycling and the frustration with the amount of waste in blue bins that is actually being recycled.
Chesapeake ended its curbside program in 2022. Virginia Beach doubled its monthly recycling fee last year, after a survey showed many residents were willing to pay for the service.
To close the new deal, SPSA needed to ensure it would have enough waste to turn over to Commonwealth Sortation. That included getting member localities to extend their agreements with SPSA, committing to a 25-year term instead of the usual 10.
Tipping fees, or the amount localities pay SPSA to collect and dispose waste, will rise. By 2029, localities will pay about $15 more per ton than under the status quo.
Following cost concerns from smaller, western localities in Hampton Roads, the waste authority developed a fee stabilization fund, using surplus revenues from commercial tipping fees, that will assist with higher fees for the first few years.
Bagley said for Hampton Roads residents, the bottom line is what they won’t notice.
“If your trash doesn't get picked up, you'll know it pretty quickly,” he said. “This gives us a place to take our trash until 2095.”
