Business in the ecology industry aims to reduce or eliminate negative impact on the environment. The goal of such an initiative is not only to make a profit, but also to make the planet healthier.

This area of ​​activity includes:

1. niches that reduce environmental pollution. These include: the manufacture of equipment, instruments, vehicles, special services for environmental expertise, etc.;
2. niches that use resource saving technology (alternative types of energy);
3. improvement of the environment, landscape design in accordance with the principles of preserving natural balance;
4. eco-education.

As you know, it is most profitable to sell a finished product, not a resource.

Areas of the domestic eco-business:

• measuring and control devices,
• devices and technologies for saving resources,
• use of secondary raw materials,
• ecological planning and reproduction,
• reproduction of human resources,
• organization of recreation,
• ecology training,
• control over the population level.

How to make money in the field of ecology?

Investing in eco-business not only allows you to make a profit, but also helps to improve the ecological situation on the planet. Most of all you can earn in the field of obtaining electricity and fuel from alternative sources (energy from cocoa beans, garbage, the use of wind and sunlight), but the size of the investment is also required considerable.

At the peak of popularity are now environmentally friendly products - this applies to both food and other goods. These include bio-packaging, recycled packaging, bamboo and other toothbrushes, and even eco-coffins.

If you have chosen waste recycling for your activities, try to adopt the experience of the successful businessman Vyacheslav Grishin.

In the city of N, thanks to the project he launched, several programs are being implemented at once:

• Non-toxic waste disposal.
• Production of affordable building materials.
• Implementation of the plan for the separate collection of waste.

What are the benefits of waste recycling for the state and for the businessman

The main idea behind plastic recycling is that it is profitable: each of us throws an average of about 200 kg of plastic waste per year. Each foreign manufacturer of plastic packaging pays a tax, which already includes the cost of processing products. These funds cover the costs of disposal and recycling of plastic.

How to implement a recycling project?

Trash is a truly unique resource: income can be obtained from literally nothing. Competition in this niche is practically zero, while this given type of activity is distinguished by high profitability.

According to statistics, about 31 million tons of waste is disposed in Russia, which are simply in landfills.

The complexity of such a business lies in the fact that any waste of different classes (there are 5 of them in total) has its own owner, and the waste has documents. The law does not apply to the fifth class of solid waste: therefore, it is beneficial for a startup to work with food waste, scrap metal, paper waste and plastic.

Recycling stages and ways to make money on it

The main ways of recycling solid waste

Moving

Waste removal from residential or industrial areas. The popular among the population is the service of removal of construction waste, and in winter - removal of snow. An unusual idea - the production of garbage containers with an unusual design and garbage collection machines.

• Disadvantages: you will have to spend money on the purchase of fuel and conclude an agreement with the landfill.
• Advantages: no need for rent, specialists and expensive equipment - it is enough to have a spacious freight transport and a contract with housing and communal services.
• Profitability: the profit depends on the tariffs for the removal and disposal of waste, and if you combine this type of earnings with the one described below, this will increase income significantly.

Garbage compaction

The first ballot boxes appeared 10 years ago in the States. The special features of the containers were that the press was powered by the energy of sunlight. MSW can be viewed as trash or a source of resources. Here the decision is for the start-up - in what area he wants to work and develop.

The main purpose of waste disposal is to move them outside the consumer's territory.

For example

Canadian firm 1-800-GOT-JUNK, led by Brian Scudamore, started in 1989 with one cheap used car and under the motto "We’ll stash your trash in a flash!" ("Let's take away your garbage in an instant!"). Skudamore was still a student at the time, and a modest income from his private garbage collection service helped pay for his studies. Finally, he made such a profit that he dropped out of school and devoted his time entirely to garbage collection. At the moment, his company is making profits of over $ 100 million a year, and franchise companies 1-800-GOT-JUNK have opened in the USA, Canada and Australia.

• Advantages: you do not need to rent anything, attract highly qualified personnel and purchase expensive equipment.
• Disadvantages: High fuel costs and the need for a landfill site.
• Profitability: the price of removing 0.8 cubic meters of garbage (standard trash can) in Moscow is from 330 rubles. Up to 60 such tanks can be taken out in one flight. The prices are highly dependent on the prices for the landfill.
• To start you will need: transport and driver.
• Competition: garbage collection from the public is a municipal service provided by utilities and is categorized as “living quarters”. Firms and enterprises, on the other hand, can be serviced by private collection companies, and there is high competition here; more than 500 waste disposal companies operate in Moscow alone.
• Specificity: if you are going to create a garbage collection business, you will certainly face the problem of transportation costs.
• To reduce them, it is necessary to increase the carrying capacity - for this you can press the garbage, for which you will need a special garbage truck with a press.

You can also use special urns with a press. This is very beneficial for the clients of the company, since they have to pay less often for exportation. The first urns equipped with a press were presented in 2004 by Seahorse Power. Their self-contained BigBelly solar-powered press is chain-driven, without any hydraulic mechanisms. The machine is very easy to maintain - just grease the door lock once a year. Tank fill levels can be monitored via an online alert system, making your logistics more successful. The container can cut waste collection costs fivefold, but it still costs a lot - over $ 3,000.
Another important issue is waste storage. After all, after the garbage is taken out, it needs to be stored somewhere. You can also dispose of waste or recycle it.

The waste dump is, as a rule, temporary before its processing or burial - in the latter case, the waste is completely isolated from the environment.

• Advantages: Waste disposal does not require much labor or money - nothing needs to be done.
• Disadvantages: this requires a huge territory, which will very quickly be filled with garbage (one large city requires an average of 40 hectares of land per year for a landfill). At the same time, the income from such a business will be relatively low, since the tariffs are carried out by the city authorities, and they will not set high tariffs for the landfill.
• Profitability: burial of household waste can cost up to 1,000 rubles per ton, moreover, an ordinary garbage truck can fit up to 10 tonnes, and even more in a garbage truck equipped with a press.
• To start you will need: a large land plot outside the city, far from protected areas and recreation areas.
• Competition: Today there are 1,092 official landfills on the territory of the Russian Federation, almost all of which are filled, and some are overflowing with waste. New places for waste disposal and burial are always in demand.
• Specificity: the landfill, according to the regulations, must be protected from the wind and ensure the protection of groundwater from the ingress of toxic effluents, therefore, such a landfill must be built in accordance with the norms. At the same time, in practice, most of these territories are not equipped with adequate protection and were formed spontaneously.

In order to organize such a business, you must:

Obtain permits for the creation of a landfill and enter its unified state register. You are also obliged to check the ecological situation in the place of its location even after the closure of the landfill.

Waste incineration

Most often, waste is incinerated unauthorized. In order to dispose of garbage by incineration, several rules must be followed, but this method is usually quite expensive and unprofitable.

Incineration of waste can significantly save space at the landfill, however, this method of ecology causes irreparable damage. The price of waste disposal is set by the state. This is the cheapest option at the moment, so alternative methods are not always welcome. In Western countries, waste incineration is several times more expensive than recycling it using other, more environmentally friendly methods.

Sorting

Sorting of waste is best done during the waste collection phase. Sorted waste can be used to generate electricity - the experience of Germany and Norway is the best example of this.

The cheapest complex for sorting waste will cost 4,000,000 rubles. Organization of city-wide waste sorting is also expensive. At the moment, only 50 such complexes are operating in Russia.

Waste sorting as a business can be represented in the form of two types of activities: sorting at the stage of collection (or the acquisition of certain types of waste).

Recycling

Recycling, recycling (from the English recycling) - the transformation of waste into something new (for example, toilet paper or cups for drinks can be created from paper waste). Pat - bottles are literally everywhere, but they can be used several times and thus cleanse the planet and reduce the amount of waste at times!

Composting

If you are looking to recycle food waste, you can opt for a niche like compost. This odorless substance is used to fertilize the soil and increase its fertile qualities. In addition to food, you can use grass, manure and sawdust, sometimes cardboard.

The compost heap must be moistened and mixed in time.

Pyrolysis method

Waste from this method of processing decomposes under the influence of high temperature, but is not incinerated - at the exit we get a product for secondary use, as well as fuel. This processing method requires careful sorting of the starting material.

Benefits: pyrolysis provides heat energy and reduces waste in landfills. This includes recycling tires for fuel oil, for example.

Example: Danish company Gypsum Recycling International. Has been organizing the recycling process for about 15 years. Advantages: demand for raw materials for processing, profitability, foreign investments, government support, payback period from 2 to 5 years.

• Disadvantages: large financial investments are required, market unevenness and instability of demand for the product.
• Profitability: with high costs at the initial stage, the profit in this niche is also very high: if the complex is engaged in the manufacture of products from the obtained raw materials, a cullet processing enterprise can bring a startup up to 100,000 rubles, provided that the raw materials were purchased for 2,000 rubles.

• Specificity: the efficiency of recycling of waste depends on the quality of sorting, therefore the best waste processing complex is a complex system, adjusted from collection and sorting to the sale of finished products of secondary processing to the consumer. Here one cannot do without close interaction with the authorities and a whole campaign to form a culture of waste management.
• Legal subtleties: processing permission required.

From all of the above, we can conclude that the removal of solid waste and the disposal of household rubbish is a profitable niche.

How to make money in the field of ecology without investments?

What if there are no ideas in the field of ecology, but this direction has been chosen? Become a volunteer - then ideas are guaranteed to appear by themselves! If there is no start-up capital, try such a way to quickly raise the required amount, such as crowdfunding - this is both an attraction of investments and a way to draw the attention of the target audience to your goods and services.

Possible Eco-Business Ideas:

• Arrangement of an organic farm;
• Delivery of organic products;
• Seed bank;
• Restaurants that prepare dishes only from local products - while the preservation is prepared by the restaurant employees;
• Tactical Urbanism - Urban projects to modernize urban space;
• Small housing - for example, tree houses or mini-houses made of corn boards;
• Organic farming and everything related to it. The sphere of agribusiness is closely related to the eco-direction, and if you have your own plot or even a small summer cottage, you can “shoot” in this area.
• Environmental education - society needs to be encouraged to collect waste separately, use less plastic containers, and so on.
• Eco-businesses can be built in the area of ​​health and tourism - for example, organizing joint morning runs and becoming a coach for a group of interested people.
• An ecological business can be a business without investments - you just need to learn how to sew or create designer items from parts of the interior or wardrobe that have become unnecessary.

Wastes classified as hazardous - energy saving bulbs and used batteries:

You can promote information about such things to the masses and make money on it, gradually creating an ecological community - working in a team is much more effective than alone! Promoting a healthy lifestyle, which includes proper nutrition and various self-development practices, heals society and makes people pay attention to things that they have not even thought about before! Why not try to make money in such a vast and, most importantly, profitable and clean niche like eco-business.

Nov 4, 2015 Sergei