How and how much you can earn on your own garbage. We open a garbage recycling business
If at the beginning of the 20th century, many European figures were afraid of an environmental disaster due to the accumulation of horse manure on the streets of large cities such as London or Paris. And they predicted that in the middle of the 20th century, all the inhabitants would be mired in the waste products of horses.
At the beginning of the 21st century, everyone, without exception, is concerned about a problem of a different nature: mountains of garbage, which, compared to horse manure, are a real threat to all of us.
But besides the negative, the mountains of paper, bottles and bags also have a benefit: they can act as raw materials for the manufacture of all kinds of goods needed in everyday life.
This means that garbage, waste and other results of the life of the population of our planet can serve to create their own business.
The main thing in this situation is to find and master the technology, as well as collect the garbage itself.
The last point may cause bewilderment: why collect it - it seems that there is more than enough of this good in landfills. This, of course, is true, but the problem is that there is no such technology with which it would be possible to make a product from waste of various nature.
Therefore, those who want to open a business in this area should know: garbage still needs to be found, collected, or even bought and cleaned of impurities. At the same time, these actions often constitute the main labor and monetary costs for the organization and operation of a business.
But despite the difficulties that, in fact, there are in any business, it is possible to open an enterprise operating on "garbage", and there are many options for this.
Now we will talk about nine interesting ideas for making money on garbage.
Plastic waste items
The American craftsman came up with a plastic recycling technology and even posted the design of the production line on the Internet. Thanks to his invention and with the help of simple manipulations and imagination, plastic cups, broken children's buckets and other garbage can turn into cute household items. And there is always a demand for such goods. All that is needed to implement this business idea is a garage and “golden” hands who can easily assemble devices for crushing, melting and molding plastic.
Recycled clothing
Russian designers figured out where to use the used plastic bottles - they decided to make fabric for sweaters out of it, and they succeeded. True, these transformations of plastic into textiles are taking place not on the territory of our country, but in the Celestial Empire.
Sweatshirts made from recycled materials are universal and absolutely no different from their counterparts made from ordinary fabric. But the very philosophy and eco-message of the brand attract buyers not only from Russia, but also from other countries.
Used tire recycling
Rubber is a universal product, it is used for the production of many different goods, while the substance itself can be recycled several times without losing its properties. And this fact allows you to organize your rubber processing business.
Where do you get raw materials to start this business? For example, accept or purchase used car tires. Since they are often changed and can simply be thrown away near the tire shop, you will not have problems finding raw materials. The main thing is to decide what you will do with crumb rubber - hand it over to manufacturers or make, for example, galoshes.
Kraft paper production
The world is being taken over by craft items: drinks, food and... paper. It has recently been fashionable to put it on the packaging of various goods, as well as the production of packages. At the same time, the main raw material for their manufacture is waste paper.
Of course, the times when the collection of this paper waste was massive have passed, so today you need to try to find the right amount of waste paper for your business. But all difficulties are completely solvable, and if you are impressed by the idea of creating bags from kraft paper, then you should carefully read the business idea.
Ecowool
At the moment, the building materials market has an abundance of different options for insulating houses. One of them is ecowool. It is dispersed, so rodents cannot attack it, and also this material allows you to fill all the voids and retains heat. Few people realize that the raw material for the production of this insulation is ordinary paper waste.
However, some homeowners are not lost and insulate their homes with simple waste paper. But these are still a minority. And those interested in ecowool are much more.
Biohumus from food waste
Many are familiar with bags of recycled earth, which are sold in all flower and garden departments. At the same time, few people know that this product can be obtained from simple food waste. And to make it available to anyone who gets a special device that turns garbage into useful fertilizer.
A device called Zera will free you from the obligation to take out the waste, as well as to acquire land for plants. But in Russia, this device is not for sale, so you can be puzzled by this issue, purchase and sell fertilizer to everyone.
Dirty Air Beads
Dutch designers have come up with a way to not worry about finding raw materials for making jewelry, as well as about the production process itself. They designed a special tower that not only absorbs dirty air, but also recycles it into various decorations.
The designers presented their invention at a foreign crowdfunding platform and have already implemented it in many countries of the world.
Used building materials
Many in the business community are worried about the widespread demolition of old buildings, as it deprives them of business space.
But meanwhile, only a small part of enterprising citizens understand that you can make good money on this. And it will not be about the legal representation of the rights of evicted fellow citizens, but about the sale of building materials taken from demolished buildings.
Still, brick and other materials practically do not lose their properties, which means they can be resold. True, finding them among a pile of debris and rubbish is not easy enough, but the fact that these works will bring you profit should compensate for all the inconvenience.
Nowadays, in an era of great opportunities, you can find a lot of ideas on how to start your own business. As a rule, most start-up entrepreneurs open cafes, shops, pawnshops, sell balloons or rent vehicles. And only a few make millions on garbage. Yes, yes, you heard right. A garbage business can bring really big money.
Unlimited Possibilities
At present, all the conditions are in place to enter this sphere and take a worthy place in it. You will have few competitors, and the prospects for the development and expansion of your empire are limitless. In general, it is very strange that in Russia this business still seems somehow outlandish and not prestigious. Meanwhile, in Europe, he has long been appreciated.
Moreover, there is fierce competition in this area, and it is simply impossible to enter it without having enough business connections and financial resources. The garbage business is interesting in that you will always have raw materials for work. Plastic bottles, broken glass, household waste - all this has been, is and will be as long as humanity exists. Experts have calculated that each person on the planet annually produces about 250 kilograms of waste.
About providing documents
Before you start doing business on garbage, you need to obtain permission to engage in such activities from the Ministry of Ecology. It is it that should issue you a license for the right to collect and process municipal solid waste. However, for this it is still necessary to pass a special environmental examination, which will allow obtaining the necessary conclusion.
Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it is issued to the entrepreneur once for the entire period of the company's existence and costs about 5,500 rubles. In addition, you will be required to receive approval from the sanitary and fire service. For a positive response from these authorities, draw up project documentation with a detailed description of the technological processes at your processing plant. These conclusions will cost you from 300 to 1000 rubles.
Think ahead
Experienced entrepreneurs say that in order to issue the entire package of permits, it may take from 3 to 6 months. If you plan to open a small processing plant, then issue an IP. To do this, provide the relevant tax application, a copy of your passport and pay the state duty.
And before investing your personal funds or borrowed loans in a dirty business, be sure to draw up a detailed action plan. You must also clearly understand what type of waste you are going to process, on what basis the garbage delivery will be delivered, and, finally, where the processed products will be sold.
About attachments
We must say right away that this business is not suitable for all entrepreneurs. As a rule, businessmen who have already succeeded in some business, who have earned their first capital on it and are thinking about expanding their empire through new areas, show interest in it. Experts say that opening a new universal plant for the disposal of various types of waste will cost about $20 million.
We think that because of this amount, many entrepreneurs who previously thought about how to make money on garbage have lost all desire for it. But don't despair. You can get by with less money. For example, you can open a small factory that would focus only on a specific type of waste. In this case, 80 thousand dollars will be enough to start.
This amount will include obtaining all necessary permits, rent, purchase of all equipment, purchase of a batch of raw materials and, of course, the first salary of all staff. As you can see, you can still figure out how to make money on garbage without having millions in your pocket. By the way, even less finance is required to organize the waste disposal business: a new KamAZ garbage truck costs about a million rubles, and a used one is half the price. But in such a niche, great difficulties lie in finding customers.
There are nuances
Your income will directly depend on what type of waste the enterprise is able to accept, how it processes waste and what the volume of its work is. Entrepreneurs who have already made capital in this area admit that it is best to deal with paper and plastic. The processing of this particular raw material is considered the most profitable (about 50%).
In order to provide your enterprise with an uninterrupted supply of waste of this particular category, organize your own collection points. As a rule, small factories buy recycled plastic at a price of 14,000 to 18,000 rubles, then process it into special granules and sell it at 30,000 rubles per 1 ton. The products of waste processing enterprises are in great demand among companies involved in plastic small things.
About the premises and more
In order to start a full-fledged work, you will need a roomy room. Its minimum size is 500 square meters. In addition, you need to have about 100 square meters of storage space, as well as a room or a separate building for an office.
Experts in this business offer to place their enterprise closer to a landfill outside the city. So you kill two birds with one stone: save money on renting premises and increase your income by reducing the cost of shipping raw materials. Your enterprise should have a minimum set, which consists of crushing equipment, a sorting line, a press, a storage hopper, and a magnet.
Don't spray
It is also recommended to install additional melting furnaces, however, this can significantly increase the amount of mandatory investments. The minimum set of non-new equipment of domestic production will cost about $50,000. As you can see, before you start making money from garbage, you need to invest well.
However, not only the initial capital is of key importance here. Before engaging in this kind of business, think carefully about everything, draw up a business plan for your enterprise. With a properly built and organized work, you can start earning serious money from garbage in the first year.
Summing up
Currently, the waste processing business is not popular among domestic entrepreneurs. This area is still treated as something inferior. In fact, earnings on garbage can be very significant, and European companies have long understood this, ready to invest millions of dollars in this business and fight in the competition to take their place in this market.
It's better to start small. Open your mini paper and plastic recycling plant. It is better to buy equipment in Russia. The minimum already worked set will cost you 50 thousand dollars. In order to start making money as soon as possible, move your business to the boundaries of the landfill.
Given the cost of a garbage truck that has already worked at another enterprise, it can be purchased in order to mobilize recycling as much as possible. And in order not to experience problems with raw materials at all, organize the collection of the waste you are interested in here at the enterprise.
In order to start this business, you need to have at least $ 70,000 in your pocket. Experts are sure that these funds can begin to return in the first year of operation. This means that in about a year and a half you will be able to justify the investment and reach a net profit. Therefore, it is worth trying your hand at this, albeit not very attractive, but profitable business.
Garbage is a promising business and, moreover, eternal, I came into it out of greed and still have no regrets. In order for the waste business to generate income, it is necessary, if possible, to be present at all stages of the technological chain: export, sort, deposit and process. So far, we are present at the first three, but our business model assumes that we will definitely be engaged in processing, having increased sufficient volumes of incoming raw materials. If you control the entire chain, you can collect additional value at each stage. We take out the garbage - we get a margin of 10-15%, we sort - another 15%, we recycle - plus the same amount. The highest competition is in the logistics market, and with each new municipal competition it increases, bringing new players to the market, and the country's real need for sorting complexes, processing plants and high-quality landfills. In Russia, there are still no full-cycle plants.
Today, companies of different levels and with different approaches work in the field of waste management. Someone is exploiting the infrastructure inherited from Soviet times without investing in modernization and without developing new areas - this is an approach fatal to our ecology. Russia is choking on garbage. And the Moscow region is, perhaps, one of the most problematic. It is precisely complex solutions to the problem that are needed: it is necessary to build new modern infrastructure facilities in accordance with European standards, while at the same time it is necessary to update the container fleet, sites and vehicles.
Influential competitors
The Russian model of management of the utility sector differs from the European one. In Europe, the municipality is independently responsible for the quality of public services, collects money from the population and hires contractors on a competitive basis. We have management companies that are responsible for this, which are the link between residents and utilities, that is, they negotiate with everyone directly, without any participation of the state.
As a result, the heads of the municipal administration have practically no leverage on companies that provide garbage collection services. In order for the mayor to make any company work well, he needs to go through a difficult procedure: create a yard inspectorate, conduct an inspection together with the local district police officer, prove that the service is of poor quality, fine or sue the company. Now Moscow is trying to change the system in the direction of the European model, abandon the institution of management companies and take over the right to hold contract tenders.
For me, as an entrepreneur, this is a risk, because it is one thing when my customers are sixty management companies, and quite another when it is a municipality that will be both a customer and a controlling body.
The largest Moscow-based company in our sector is State Unitary Enterprise Ecotechprom. They control 50% of waste removal from the residential sector, and 80% in processing and depositing. The second largest garbage disposal company is MKM-Logistics, owned by the Chigirinsky family. They are followed by Ecoline by Gennady Timchenko.
For us, the priority is the construction of new modern facilities - MSCs and landfills. Now it is 13 enterprises in 6 regions. We recently acquired the largest operator for the removal and disposal of medical waste in Moscow, so in the very near future, Eco-System will create its own medical waste management infrastructure in the Moscow region.
Drinking employees
The utility industry traditionally suffers from a shortage of qualified personnel, and without the training of professional personnel, it is difficult to imagine its further successful development. There is also the most acute problem of the prestige of the profession. Since Soviet times, people have been convinced that the janitors are losers, drunkards, limiters, and now also guest workers. When I joined the company, I had to audit the personnel and completely change the personnel policy. We have changed the principle of remuneration so that employees understand what exactly they are encouraged and punished for. You can evaluate the work of employees in different ways, for example, based on how much they traveled and transported, and not on how well they provided the service. Therefore, we first of all formulated what exactly our service consists of, and then translated this understanding into a system of employee motivation. After all, we are not an ordinary cargo company, and our clients do not pay us for the fact that our cars traveled 100 km with some kind of cargo. We are paid for a quality and timely service, that is, for maintaining cleanliness, which has measurable parameters - everything must be done on time, quickly and accurately.
When people go to work, there should be no more garbage. In any civilized city, cleaning takes place in a short period of time, from 5:30 to 6:30 in the morning. It is believed that if you do not take out the garbage within three days, it will lead to an environmental disaster. The city can be easily destroyed by paralyzing the waste disposal system. So, for example, once happened in Naples. The owners of the landfill and the logistics company could not agree on a price, as a result of which the garbage collection system was paralyzed for a month, during which time Naples turned into a dump. The city was restored for a whole year.
Separate collection
In Soviet times, no one appreciated either human or, even more so, natural resources, so special landfills were not planned during urban planning. It was considered completely normal to throw garbage into the forest, into a ravine near the city. There were experiments with the collection of scrap metal and waste paper, but it was more of a fashion than an indicator of efficient waste management. The habit of thinking about what and how you throw away, we have not formed.
Europeans perceive garbage as a raw material and understand that recycling is a complex and expensive process. For comparison: the average Russian family now pays about 600 rubles a year for waste disposal, and the average Austrian - 500 euros. And here you need to consider that they have this - the cost of removing already sorted garbage. If the shipping company finds paper or food waste in the glass container, a fine will be issued. Not separating garbage in Europe is expensive and simply indecent. Russia can come to this in an evolutionary way, but several conditions must be met. First, the cost of garbage collection should increase. Secondly, there should be competition among companies dealing with garbage.
Companies could offer residents to save money by separating trash at home. We have such experience in Astrakhan and Ryazan. This service has not yet received mass distribution, but it is already very popular with educational institutions, which is important, since it is necessary to form a culture of waste management, as they say, “the sooner the better.” While we sell secondary raw materials. To do recycling on our own, we need to start serving about 5 million people.
Plastic, metal and clean cardboard are highly competitive raw material fractions: they are actively bought, they are not enough. Plastic has become actively popular in recent years, because many new factories have appeared in Russia that process it. One ton of PET costs 380 euros here, in Europe - 500 euros. China is actively buying secondary raw materials. The trouble is that the garbage that has passed through the container and the garbage truck is mixed in such a way that it is very difficult to separate them, and such dirty raw materials are cheap. Therefore, sorting before transport would be beneficial to everyone. In fact, many janitors earn extra money by sorting garbage. They stack bundles of cardboard or bags of bottles next to the containers, and they are then picked up by representatives of recycling companies.
Dumps in the forest
Moscow produces from 6 to 10 million tons of garbage a year, and this is only household waste, and add medical, biological, construction waste to it - and all this needs to be stored somewhere. As a resident of Moscow, of course, it may not matter to me where the garbage is taken out - the main thing is that it should not be in my yard, but as a person who often visits the Moscow region, this is already important to me, because this is where he ends up. Half of the existing landfills in the Moscow region have long expired, and the number of unauthorized dumps continues to grow. As before, and now garbage dumps appear spontaneously - without a plan and appropriate permits.
Ask any Russian mayor what their main headache is, and they will answer that it is dumps. Often, garbage is simply taken out of the city and dumped where necessary. For example, we once undertook to close unauthorized landfills in several regions - it turned out that it was even difficult to count them. Under Barnaul alone, they counted about sixty operating facilities, none of which has a license. How many have we not found yet?
Once, some guys organized a dump right in the residential microdistrict of Astrakhan, and the residents blamed us because we took out the garbage from this area. Law enforcement agencies did not want to do this - we had to organize surveillance ourselves, find out who was behind it. As a result, after six months they simply took it and left - they probably found a new place. In the garbage business, the shadow sector is very large. Companies enter into a contract for the removal of garbage, and no one cares where it is dumped. Most often, either into the forest, or to long-closed landfills.
The highest mountain of waste I have ever seen was 25 meters. A tamping machine can still drive to such a height. But the worst thing about a landfill is not what's on the outside, but what's inside. During the decomposition of waste, a poisonous liquid is formed, which flows down and, if there is no protective geomembrane or clay castle at the base of the landfill, enters the groundwater. After the landfill is filled, it is recultivated: the garbage is allowed to settle for a year, it is compacted as much as possible, then covered with a layer of earth. So that the methane that appears as a result of decay does not blow up the landfill from the inside (and this happened), pipes are driven into it at different depths to remove the gas.
In Russia, I have not seen a single enterprise that collects landfill gas, so that it is freely discharged into the atmosphere. For comparison, deep processing of waste is actively used in Europe, as a result of which a certain set of completely inert fractions, similar to sand, from which everything that is possible has been squeezed out, reaches the disposal at the landfill. Glass, plastic, wood are selected at the collection stage. They use the remaining food waste for agriculture and electricity generation.
Waste incinerators
Incineration does not destroy waste, but only reduces its volume at the expense of safety. From one ton of waste, 300 kilograms of ash are obtained, while the waste itself has the fourth or fifth hazard class, and the ash is the second: it is poisonous and requires special storage. Only radioactive and chemical waste is more dangerous than it. 60% of the cost of a modern waste incineration plant is accounted for by the treatment of emissions into the atmosphere. There is a factory in the center of Vienna, where a stork lives on the pipe as a sign of the safety of emissions.
There is one scandalous and anecdotal story about emissions from Moscow waste incinerators. Mayor Luzhkov wanted to prove to journalists and environmentalists that the plant he built was safe, but during an interview, caustic pink phenolic smoke poured out of the factory chimneys. Not at a loss, the mayor explained: "Do not be afraid, there is such a rose of winds here that all the smoke blows away from Moscow."
I don't even want to think about where the ash is taken from the Moscow factories, because it is known that we have not built any special storage facilities for this. But she's going somewhere! The capital's factories burn about 12% of all household waste in the city, which results in at least 300 thousand tons of ash.
Photo provided by the press service of "Eco-system"
Russians annually produce hundreds of tons of garbage. It accumulates in landfills, buried, burned. By the way, it's all money! Yes, by burying garbage in landfills, we are burying capital in the ground. But a significant part of the garbage can be recycled and make money on it.
Moreover, this is not necessarily a multimillion-dollar investment in a complex and large plant. In fact, organizing a waste recycling business is easier than it seems. Need sorting line, a press, a couple of trucks and a garbage truck. Everything, with this arsenal you can "go into battle."
The essence of recycling
Let's immediately dot all the "i". We will not talk about the business of full-fledged waste processing. This is quite an expensive business. It is much easier to start sorting and selling waste paper, plastic bottles and cans for further processing.
In this case, your job is as follows: you receive the garbage, sort it, selecting plastic, tin, paper and cardboard. Then send it all to the press. After that, ready-made briquettes made of plastic, tin or paper are loaded into the machine and sent to customers.
Who is the buyer? There are many, you just have to look. In fact, these are almost all companies engaged in the production of plastic products, producing cardboard, tin products.
According to the reviews of people involved in such a business, it is important to choose the right staff here. What to hide, the work itself is not prestigious and rather specific, especially at the sorting stage. Where you literally have to sort through tons of garbage with your hands, in search of the things you need.
And this is one of the key problems of this business. As entrepreneur Igor Sviridov, who deals with waste processing in Volgograd, says, there is nothing more difficult than finding people to sort.
“This has become a real problem, yes, the work is unskilled, yes“ dirty ”, respectively, the salary is not the highest, but I paid garbage sorters decently, at least, more than loaders in a nearby hypermarket, - says Igor. - It did not help. After working for a short time, they always quit. I tried to hire homeless people and the so-called downtrodden element. But it didn't help. The solution was found through trial and error. First, I improved working conditions. And my sorters have disposable wraps for clothes, beautiful and comfortable uniforms, a clean and modern locker room, a shower. Secondly, I and other employees in every possible way demonstrated to the sorters that they are a key link in our chain of success. Thirdly, at first I myself worked with them on sorting. In the end, I solved an impossible task and coped with the staff turnover in the sorting shop!
Where to get raw materials?
At the landfill. Do not laugh. In fact, only there you will find a lot of ownerless plastic bottles, cardboard, glass containers. The point is small - to agree with the management of the landfill that you are allowed to "rake up the rubble." Problems may arise here, but, as practitioners say, a little help from the landfill administration solves all issues.
As the primary sorters who will select the garbage you are interested in, local homeless people are quite suitable. They know very well what lies where, and for little money they are ready to give you this stuff. The only thing is that they need strict control.
But there is another option - you can conclude an agreement with shops, markets, various institutions. They regularly have tens of kilograms of paper waste that needs to be put somewhere. According to Igor Sviridov from Volgograd, he easily signed a contract for the export of empty cardboard boxes with a supermarket chain. For this he pays little money. But it is guaranteed to receive paper and cardboard in large volumes, which are then handed over to processors in a compressed form.
“If you do not take into account the costs of transportation, wages, and so on, then I sell a kilogram of waste paper at least 10 times more expensive than I bought it from a supermarket,” Igor clarifies. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to build such a supply chain with plastic bottles.
Where and how to sell
Main consumers waste paper, plastic and tin- various productions. They are in almost every region, and, as experience shows, they are happy to take recycled materials.
But they take it by weight. In addition, no one will be happy if you bring a full KAMAZ of plastic bottles or waste paper. After all, half of it is air, and such recyclables will take unreasonably much space. Also, are you willing to pay for air freight?
Therefore, the main part of the waste processing enterprise is the press. It should be a universal press that will make dense cubes from your garbage. It is these cubes that you will sell. Moreover, as the current entrepreneurs say, it is quite profitable.
Unfortunately, Igor Sviridov does not disclose the amount of his profit. But he emphasizes that the profitability of his business is almost 100 percent, and the demand for products is constantly growing.
Ivan Muraviev
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