Trash boom: There's a payday in your recycling bin
Oil companies aren't the only ones getting a financial lift from 2008's commodity crunch. Other, less likely winners are raking in record profits as a result of the booming demand for raw materials like aluminum, tin and plastics: recyclers. As prices for recycled materials climb into uncharted territory, waste management companies are finding that their warehouses filled with junk are starting to look more like gold mines. According to The Independent, a bale of aluminum cans is selling for $900 -- roughly the price of an ounce of gold. Apparently, the upward trend hasn't gone unnoticed and venture capital is pouring into the "waste and recycling" business. In 2001, investors pumped a pithy $20M into the waste materials biz. By 2007, that number had topped $622M. No longer is the recycling business populated with hippie environmentalists with funky business models, now it's Wall Street that's digging through the trash.
[via ENN]
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