Waste management pays bonus

''Companies and people mostly want to cut down on landfill sites, and look at recycling and other means of disposal,'' she said. ''Landfill is getting scarcer, and we've got to make everyone more aware of waste.''

This is borne out by the experience of WH Malcolm, which dates back to 1926 as a horse-and-cart coal merchant, and now covers recycling, haulage and landfill. The company has one of Scotland's biggest recycling plants at Merklands Quay in Glasgow.

Walter Malcolm, grandson of the founder, claims that straightforward waste disposal on landfill sites has decreased since the tax.

''By nearly 30%,'' he said. ''Companies are re-using materials on site - by landscaping, raising levels of the site, and so on.''

One noticeable aspect is a change in the role of companies like this.

Instead of being paid by the load taken away, Malcolm finds that his company now frequently works as a sub-contractor, looking at a site as a whole, analysing what can be re-used, which parts re-cycled, and which must be land-filled.

The same is happening with many waste companies, who have discovered that this advisory service is what gets them the job.

Recycling grows ever more important, with the re-sale of recycled material back to the same site, or supplied to other building contractors who may use crushed brick for concrete instead of new quarry material as a base for sites.

In Glasgow, the central area and other cities, sites are, in any case, usually on land where earlier buildings have been demolished.

Professor George Fleming, Professor of Civil Engineering, which includes the centre for environmental research at the University of Strathclyde, confirms the significance of the landfill tax in developing a research base and good practice landfill to reduce waste, as well as an affirmative view from the general public.

''The key issue is waste management and reduction in waste,'' he said. ''If we as a population bought more re-cycled materials, that would be an incentive to industry to do so, but it must also be reflected in the cost.''

Landfill Tax legislation allows 20% of the amount which the waste disposal and recycling companies must impose on their customers, and pass to the Government, to be directed to environmental and charity programmes.

Already, many waste management and landfill contractors who recycle are finding an increase in re-sales, and this is not only among the larger operators. The company of William Hamilton & Sons, based on a farm near Larkhall, also has a small recycling plant and landfill site, which deal with inert material.

''Of the 110,000 tonnes that came in last year, we re-sold 80%,'' David Hamilton said. ''We're looking at efficiency all the time and we're also moving into the green waste side now.''

Since the Environment Protection Act of 1990, in particular, Professor Fleming believes that the industry has taken the need of care very seriously, and he applauds the requirement for training, in which his university is involved, of all operators on landfill sites. Training is carried out by the university's spin-out envirocentre, with Professor Fleming as its managing director.

''The industry is responding to the legislation very well,'' he said. Nor does he believe that the use of recycled materials, with the consequent use of fewer resources, need cost more.

The theory that it could become more profitable to recycle is very popular among academics at the moment, but calls for much research, design and development from a range of specialists as varied as laboratories, city planners, technologists, architects, and farmers.

One irony could be that many specialists are paid by what they spend, not what they save, which would call for a somersault in current thinking, something to which companies like WH Malcolm, and the growing band of waste management consultants, have already accepted.

With the exception of countries such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, Britain has lagged behind the rest of Europe in tackling some aspects of recycling and waste management, but is now catching up. Professor Fleming is already aware that the new European Directive on Landfill, expected late-1998 or early-1999, will impose further restrictions, such as the prohibition of rubber tyres or liquid waste in landfill sites, a 25% reduction in domestic waste by the year 2000, and compulsory re-processing before any waste is put in landfill sites.

Nor is incineration necessarily the way. ''It is costly and can contribute to global warming,'' Professor Fleming said.

One of Scotland's biggest events in the waste management industry so far this year is the sale of Scotland's largest independent waste collector, Paterson's quarries of Coatbridge, to Biffa. In turn, Biffa Waste Services is one of Britain's largest waste management companies, with depots, landfill sites and other plants around England and Wales, and is also responsible for refuse collection and recycling for 16 local authorities, including a doorstep collection of recyclable waste.

The company can offer the complete range of services to top Scottish business and industry. These include advisory, recycling, minimisation, basic disposal, and segregation at source into different waste streams.

''We can go into a company and do a waste audit,'' said regional manager, Hugh Stewart. ''Then tell them: This is what you should be recycling, this is what you should be re-dumping. in other words, we can advise them how to run a complete waste management scheme.''

The company is constantly devising ideas to assist clients with waste regulations,and help companies to comply with the packaging regulations.

Since the Landfill Tax was introduced, Biffa, as a group, has already invested some #4m of the 20% of the Landfill Tax it is allowed to direct towards environmental projects to the Biffaward Fund, managed by the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, and opened last year.

Academics are agreed that research and education in re-manufacturing and re-cycling are important in controlling the waste produced and that the Landfill Tax is a good first step.

However, industry and the public will only use recycled materials and goods, still generally more expensive, if they are cost effective for industry and competitive in the shops.