There's Gold in Them Thar Smelly Hills

The idea is one of a number of creative approaches that look at environmental problems as holding the seeds of their own solutions, says Truman Semans of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. He puts it in the same category as using tapped-out, abandoned oil wells to bury the carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, a promising way to let both the United States and China take advantage of their huge coal supplies without exacerbating global warming. "It's finding value in otherwise nasty or unused resources," he says. Landfill mining will probably follow the same trajectory that recycling did, Semans says. While still an infant industry and not yet efficient enough, it will need some initial support from tax breaks, subsidies, and government policies, but eventually, it will become cost effective on its own.

In the meantime, of course, landfills across the country swell and fester. Even with newly mandated plastic linings and such, they're really not much different than putting your trash in Hefty bags and burying it in the backyard. Eventually, the bag tears or leaks, and the soil gets contaminated. Why not keep those big dumps clean by mining the treasure within?

Alan Deutschman (adeutschman@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer based in San Francisco.