How street sweepers are brushing up a fortune in precious metals

AP Photo/Alastair Grant

In a Little Britain sketch the woman who runs dieting club Fat Fighters quizzes here charges with "How many calories in dust are there? Anyone?" before answering herself, "That's right, there are no calories in dust!"

Maybe there are no calories in dust, but according to one big business, there's definitely money in it.

In probably the most high tech solution to proving that there is, in fact, brass in muck, waste management firm Veolia has developed a plan to sweep up tens thousands of tonnes of road dust and extract the precious metals that form part of it. Metals like platinum, palladium and rhodium.