Already, the world's 700-odd waste-to-energy plants generate more power than all its wind turbines and solar panels put together.

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Recycling rates there are two to three times America's, and the rest of their trash goes to waste-to-energy plants.

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He says half of the ash coming out of U.S. waste-to-energy plants is glass and metal, stuff that can be recycled.

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The biggest success story may be Singapore, which has four waste-to-energy plants that can process 7, 600 tons of waste per day.

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Long-term, Zell is excited about the waste-to-energy plants he has acquired.

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Even America is thinking again: in 20-odd states that require utilities to generate a proportion of their power from renewable sources, waste-to-energy plants count towards the goal.

ECONOMIST: The waste business smells of money

Tractabel, a Belgian power giant, notes that it initially built waste-to-energy plants in Britain to take advantage of policies that gave favourable commercial breaks to renewable technologies.

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The economics of these waste-to-energy plants hangs on two things.

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In many countries power from landfill gas or waste-to-energy plants (like the one at Spittelau, outside Vienna, illustrated above) attracts subsidies of one kind or another because it saves emissions.

ECONOMIST: The waste business smells of money

To that end, its city hall is covered in solar panels and there are plans to fit cosier insulation to local-government buildings, build four waste-to-energy plants and buy 500 hybrid diesel-electric buses by 2010.

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