Earth Equity News

High Price of Oil Spurs Market for Recycled and Recovered Plastic. By Kate Kelland, Reuters, August 25, 2008. "Sparked by surging oil, a dramatic rise in the value of old plastic is encouraging waste companies across the world to dig for buried riches in rotting rubbish dumps. Long a symbol of humanity's throw-away culture, existing landfill sites are now being viewed as mines of potential which... could also help bolster the planet's dwindling natural resources... In Britain alone, experts say landfill sites could offer up an estimated 200 million tonnes of old plastic -- worth up to 60 billion pounds at current prices -- to be recovered and recycled, or converted to liquid fuel... With this in mind, leaders of the world's waste management industry are planning to come together in London in October for what is being billed as the first 'global landfill mining' conference. 'Once plastic is in a landfill site, it pretty much sits there doing nothing -- and the beauty of that is that you're able to go back and recapture it in the future,' said Peter Mills... [of] New Earth Solutions, who is scheduled to speak at the conference."