TREND WATCH

A roundup of business developments spotted by other publications. Items were compiled and edited by Grassroots Research, a unit of the San Francisco money management firm of RCM Capital Management. Waste Not: An unlikely competitor in hazardous waste disposal turns out to be the cement industry. Cement kilns are increasingly burning hazardous waste for fuel. Kilns not only neutralize the wastes but turn them into part of their finished product. LaFarge Corp.’s Systec Environmental division, which serves 600 hazardous waste producers in the United States and Canada, says it can burn anything its customers produce: waste solvents, paints, inks, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. A kiln operates at 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 800 degrees hotter than the typical waste incinerator. That exceeds the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines for temperatures that neutralize hazardous compounds. Boston Globe

Recycling Agreement: Du Pont Canada and Procter & Gamble are cooperating on a breakthrough program to recover high-density polyethylene plastic bottles. The program calls for bottles to be ground into flakes and processed into pellets by Du Pont and Waste Management Inc. of Burlington, Ontario. The pellets would be sold to Procter & Gamble, which has contracted with Plax Inc., also of Burlington, to incorporate the pellets into a new line of plastic bottles. Toronto Globe and Mail

Sunny Side: Michael Food Inc. of St. Louis Park, Minn., has extended the convenience food frontier with a precooked omelet. It can be heated in a microwave or conventional oven and keeps in a refrigerator for 30 days. The product recently began a market test in Minneapolis-St. Paul, packaged with precooked hash browns. A company spokesman calls the omelet “the most value-added egg product in our egg division.” City Business