How to turn a garbage dump into a gold mine

Rubbish tips have suddenly become much more attractive. That's because trash is a rich source of renewable energy - no bad thing in these carbon-conscious times. We pick a firm at the forefront of the landfill gas-to-energy business.

Waste disposal is something that we in developed countries tend to take for granted at least until the system breaks down. Just ask the poor citizens of Naples, where a dispute between the mafia and local officials has left garbage piled six-foot high in the streets and reduced the locals to nightly rosary vigils around massive bonfires of rubbish.

It's no surprise gangsters are drawn to the waste business, as Michelle Tsai points out on Slate.com. It's always been a dependable business, but changes over the last ten years have added some exciting growth areas to the industry. It's no longer just about piling up waste at the local landfill. Trash is now a commodity. India is crying out for scrap aluminium, China wants our discarded steel to build its skyscrapers, and a whole industry has sprung up recycling laptops and phones. A tonne of scrap from discarded PCs contains more gold than can be produced from 17 tonnes of gold ore.

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Eoin came to MoneyWeek in 2006 having graduated with a MLitt in economics from Trinity College, Dublin. He taught economic history for two years at Trinity, while researching a thesis on how herd behaviour destroys financial markets.