It was heartening this week to see that Bradford Council is finally taking action to increase its recycling figures in a big way and cut the amount of waste it sends to landfill.

This is mainly down to being saddled with huge increases in landfill tax they will have to pay rather than an overnight conversion to being green but this is a tax all those concerned with environmental issues are glad the Government has actually increased. If only they could do the same on fuel duties.
The £35million autoclave contract will see 75,000 tonnes diverted from holes in the ground each year. The waste would be heat-treated and then metals and plastics separated out. The majority of the remainder will be sold on to make compost or recycled paper and cardboard products.
But 20 per cent of the rubbish will still have to be landfilled and space for that is still running out. Couldn't nearly all of what we throw away be used again in some form? Or is that wishful thinking? I'm hoping the long-term solution to the problem, a 25-year £400million contract could do exactly that.
Autoclaving is one option but it will take energy to create the steam to sterilise the rubbish and collecting it and transporting it to one central plant will emit plenty of CO2 too. It seems to be very energy-intensive, though some of the residual fibre left at the end of the process could be burned.
Instead I'm particularly interested in the new gasification technology which, once all the recycables have been removed, turns the resulting rubbish into gas and oil which can be used as fuels.
Meanwhile, household and business rubbish is still being treated as waste and not as a resource. I like to think of what we put in our wheelie bins as a potential gold mine. The metals, paper, plastics and organic matter could soon be so valuable that they are collected for nothing rather than people being charged for them to be taken away.
It's already cheaper to reuse metals than produce them fresh from ore and with rising energy costs and predicted oil shortages, paper and plastics could go the same way. The organic matter also has value as a compost let alone what it's worth as potential fuel because of its calorific value.
My dream is for decentralised mini recycling plants/power stations in towns and city areas collecting and sorting our rubbish and then getting energy and heat from what's left to put into the local grid which also incorporates residents' wind and water turbines, combined heat and power units and other renewables.
This will boost the district self-sufficiency in energy and, although this is a network which will need large investment, Bradford has it in its share of the Leeds/Bradford Airport sale.
Eventually, who knows, mining landfill tips for all the materials we have thrown away in the past may be common practice.