Each month, Joel Rubin works to remind officials from eight south Hampton Roads communities, plus the media and other audiences, that the way we manage waste disposal today is the way to go in the future as well.

Most residents might believe their trash goes from their black cans into a landfill, but we are actually a progressive community in that regard. The garbage is trucked by city trucks to what are called “transfer stations” in each community, where it is sorted.  Most then travels in another vehicle to Wheelabrator Technologies in Portsmouth, where it is shredded, then fed into super hot boilers that converts the “fuel” into steam for the adjacent Norfolk Naval Shipyard and electricity for the nation’s power grid.

The region is deciding now whether to continue doing this beyond 2018 when the current contract ends.  Wheelabrator is very interested in doing so.  The Navy unofficially is too because it counts on the Cradock “energy from waste” operation not just for the steam to heat its 94 shops and dry docks each winter but also to meet sustainable energy goals mandated by the service.  The Portsmouth operation is responsible for 40% of its target goals for its entire Mid-Atlantic region, which stretches from Maine to Virginia.

Energy from Waste happens to be the preferred environmental option to landfilling and Wheelabrator’s plant in Portsmouth is operating efficiently, thanks in part to some $30-million in improvements the company has made since it purchased the facility from the Southeastern Public Service Authority in 2010.

Here is a new video we produced that tells the story of the partnership between Wheelabrator and the U.S. Navy.  Wheelabrator is sharing it with opinion leaders and decision makers, but we thought you ought to know the story too.