Could $100 oil turn dumps into plastic mines?
M&S to charge 5p for plastic bagsAccording to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the amount of household rubbish thrown out across the world is expected to rise to about 3 billion tonnes a year by 2030 from 1.6 billion tonnes in 2005 - or about 1 kg (2.2 lbs) per person per day in 2005.
Many of the world's rich countries send about half of that trash to landfill, but the OECD projects that rate will fall to 40 percent by 2030 as governments promote recycling - of materials such as metals, glass and paper - or incineration to generate heat or electricity.
"Over a period of a very long time - many decades - we have had a policy of burying whatever we can in landfill sites - so there are valuable resources in those sites," said Steve Whatmore, of Orchid Environmental, a waste and recycling firm.
"And wherever there are valuable resources, there is always the temptation to investigate whether its worth recovering them. The logic is sound, but the practicalities are complex - and you have to balance those out with the commercial viability."
FROM "SCAVENGING" TO "LANDFILL MINING"
Landfill mining - digging in dumps for valuable materials - is hardly a new concept, and already viable for some.
Images of poor, often homeless people scavenging waste to sell from landfill sites in Asia and South America have already provided evidence there is money to be made from other people's rubbish.
William Hogland, a professor in Environmental Engineering and Recovery from the University of Kalmar in Sweden, also points to previous instances of dumpsite mining in Israel in the early 1950s where the soil - enriched with rotting waste - was recovered and recycled to improve soil quality in orchards.
And certain U.S. states have since the 1980s mined waste from landfills to be used as fuel for incineration to produce energy.
"Several pilot studies have been carried out for research or pre-feasibility studies in countries in Europe, but also in China, Japan and India," he said.
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