Waste disposal is a good example. It is a fragmented industry. Companies in this sector make money by following widely differing business models. Some collect and sort waste in an age-old traditional manner. Others are pioneering fresh approaches to recycling waste.

For a change, government actions help sector companies to increase their profits, not to reduce them as is so often the case. Fresh UK and EU government regulations provide tax and profit incentives for some environmentally friendly policies. Other programmes aim to reduce the amount of rubbish we generate and increase recycling efforts.

Each new initiative seems to create a fresh profit opportunity for some company in the sector, be it a new high-tech procedure to process chemical waste, or an improvement in the way traditional household waste is collected.

Industry experts believe long-term industry prospects are quite positive. Several waste disposal companies have lengthy government contracts. Some will run for decades.

Major institutions, so far, have generally not focused on waste disposal. The reason is the UK trash recycling industry is small by stock market standards. Total combined market value for several major companies in this sector is just over a half-billion pounds. To put this figure into perspective, drug giant GlaxoSmithKline is valued at £78 billion. The recent spurt in oil prices has created a market value for BP in the area of £130 billion.

According to Shares Magazine, the four major names in the recycling industry are Alkane (ALK), Augean (AUG), Shanks (SKS), and Straight (STT). Shanks has been in the public arena for several decades. The other three are newcomers.

Straight is at the low-tech end of the sector. It is a major provider of wheelie bins and collection containers. Sales revenues have grown in recent years. Analysts expect growth to continue as increased numbers of households are required to separate household waste from recyclable material like newspapers, bottles, plastic and cans.

Shanks focuses upon collecting industrial waste and recycling hazardous chemical waste. Its strategy is to line up long-term contracts to treat municipal waste. Some of its contracts will run for decades.

Alkane is one of the new kids on the street. It creates electricity from methane that is sourced from disused coal mines. The company operates in Germany as well as the UK. It recently announced that its operations were moving into the profit column.

Augean operates landfill sites. Analysts believe that fresh legislation forcing hazardous and non-hazardous waste to be stored in separate landfull sites will be a significant plus for Augean.

As our graph shows, sector shares have been in an up-trend for the past year. A bout of weakness in recent months pulled shares back to their long-term support line. It might be a good moment to dip a toe into the muck.