The rubbish race is under way as waste plants turn waste mountains into money mountains
McBains Cooper has been appointed project co-ordinator on a number of UK waste management site developments as the world of rubbish is turned upside down by the latest generation of disposal and recycling equipment. This comes at a time when a fast-accelerating race is underway to buy as much rubbish as possible - fuelled by airport-standard technology.
"Industry used to pay to have its rubbish taken away, now it invites bids for the privilege of removing its waste - because the newest plants can turn waste mountains into money mountains thanks to technology developed and applied to meet EU requirements for more efficient waste disposal," said Michael Paul of McBains Cooper.
"The very latest technology from Germany and Scandinavia can identify and sort the valuable rubbish and waste, and direct non-recyclable waste into incinerators, which, in some cases, generate power to run the plant.
"We work on a vast array of design and construction projects across a huge extent of business sectors, and the technology being brought to bear in waste disposal matches that which we see in extremely sophisticated manufacturing and sorting plants. Construction consultancy was once an alien concept in waste management - it was all about digging holes and filling them with rubbish - but the newest waste management sites actually have technology to rival airports; in some cases even more sophisticated.
"But there is sophistication of a different sort too. Entrepreneurial businesses are engaging with local government on Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) to create the most advanced possible waste disposal sites, which, in turn, make it possible to extract the highest possible value from rubbish and waste.
"This has resulted in a race among the waste management companies to secure supplies of the best possible revenue-generating rubbish - and instead of paying to have rubbish taken away, industry is inviting bids to buy its annual output of waste. There is a landgrab to secure this high quality rubbish - a combination of materials that can be recycled and sold, but also used to fuel incinerators.
"But the eye-opener has to be the optical technology used to sort waste when it arrives at a plant: it is very similar to the type of equipment that sorts and directs baggage at airports. Whoever coined the phrase 'where there's muck, there's brass' was years ahead of the current technological game.
"The rubbish race is well under way. A measure of the potential for waste disposal is the calibre of names associated with the projects with which we're involved: the big banks, big law firms and the world's top five accountants are all seeing the potential for revenue generation from rubbish."
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