Peter Jones, a director of Biffa- Britain’s largest waste handling company, says that tighter EU recycling laws and higher landfill taxes will cost up to £8bn within years.

“The days of chucking waste into holes in the ground are over and the future is hi-tech, efficient, but fiendishly expensive. Instead of chucking 75% of everything we have finished with down a hole for about £12 a tonne, within a few years very little will be landfilled and that will cost two or three times what it costs now. We expect it to cost Britain £5-8bn to deliver an 80% diversion from landfill. Everyone is in for a rude shock.”

Efficient and fiendishly expensive? I can’t help thinking he’s missing a bit of joined up thinking and hasn’t considered the money making potential of closing the manufacturing cycle with recycling.

Technorati tag: Waste, Recycling