£1m rare metals in road dirt
Street cleaning seems to be a very rewarding job if you know what your looking for.
According to one company they have said that in one year they believe that rummaging through everything they pick up they could find up to £1m worth of rare or precious metals.
Technical director Richard Kirkman said: “In the past we have always sent our street sweeping to landfill or compost sites.
“We wanted to find something to do with these metals, so we are separating everything out with flotation tanks and mechanical sorting machines.
“We are left with this fine black dust and we have found palladium, rhodium and platinum.”
The new plant in Ling Hall, near Rugby, Warks, filters the sweepings through a “giant vibrating sieve” and then chemically washes them.
