How to dispose of waste in the natural environment. Profitable recycling: How to build a waste recycling business
Many people believe that there are no recycling plants in Russia. But that's not true. We have had such enterprises for a long time. Where do they get raw materials from if almost no one sorts waste? Now they mainly process industrial waste or centrally collect, for example, cardboard in supermarkets. But all the directors of these factories tell us that they are ready and able to recycle more if Russians start sorting their garbage at home.
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During the Soviet era, pioneers collected and handed over waste paper and scrap metal. But these phenomena were not widespread. In those days, there was a tradition of throwing garbage into a ravine near the nearest forest. Fifteen to twenty years ago it was easy to find collection points for dishes and return beer bottles for one and a half rubles. Now in Russia there is no tradition of sorting waste; there are only a few such collection points and several companies that process plastic, waste paper and old car tires.
How do they deal with garbage in Japan, the USA and other countries? How efficient are waste incineration plants? How to give a second life to plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard? How much waste is recycled in Russia?
Still from the movie "Wall-E"
Japan
The high population density in Japan is due to its small size - more than 126 million people live on 370 thousand square kilometers, which is slightly more than 2% of the territory of Russia. For comparison, 146 million people live in Russia. Moreover, 70% of Japan’s territory is mountains, so it would be illogical to waste space on landfills. Moreover, the Japanese have found a way to increase their archipelago using waste - they have been building islands from garbage for more than 15 years.Waste sorting is mandatory for all residents of the country. Depending on the day of the week, citizens put out a certain type of garbage, which is collected by waste collection services. “The garbage disposal system in Tokyo itself is designed in such a way that residents have no other way to dispose of garbage other than separate waste. If you put out unsorted waste on the day of “burning garbage”, then they simply won’t take it away and they will attach a warning sticker,” said the head of the Department of Waste Disposal of the Tokyo Environmental Department in an interview with Russia-1. Failure to comply with the rules results in fines. Illegal dumping of garbage is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of 10 million yen - this is more than 5 million rubles as of March 2018.
More than 90% of all plastic bottles in the country are used for recycling and production of new products - including bottles and new fabrics, for example, for the uniform of Manchester United football players. They try not to add new petroleum products into circulation. Instead, almost all bottles produced in Japan are made from waste granules.
Garbage has been burned in Japan since 1924 - then the first waste incineration plant appeared and the tradition of separating waste into burning and non-burning began to emerge. It is so safe that such factories operate even within the city of Tokyo, near schools, residential buildings, parks and golf clubs. More than 2.4 thousand filters at the plant ensure clean production without any visible smoke. The energy obtained from burning waste provides electricity for production and allows profit to be made by selling excess to energy companies.
“At meetings with residents every six months, we show all the indicators on gas emissions. We tell you both the good and the bad, and what problems the factories have, breakdowns. And they have their own standards, which are several times stricter than government indicators,” said Motoaki Koboyashi, director of the Tokyo Waste Management Association, head of the international transport department, in 2017. At the same time, Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, promised to build factories in the region using the same technology.
Katsushika waste incineration plant, Tokyo.
Russia
In Russia, 3.5 billion tons of waste are “produced” per year, of which 40 million tons are household waste. About 10% of this waste is disposed of: 3% is burned, 7% is recycled. The remaining 90%, or 35 million tons of household waste, ends up in landfills.The composition of household waste itself makes it possible to use 60-80% of it as raw material for industry or for composting. This is hampered by the lack of separate waste collection and the low level of development of the waste processing industry as a whole. Instead of sorting waste into briquettes and selling them for production, the company's management contractors take the waste to landfills, sometimes to closed or illegal ones. Not so long ago, it was normal to throw broken cabinets, car parts, batteries and milk cartons into the nearest ravine - the same thing was practiced not only in Russia, but also in Austria, one of the most advanced countries in the world at the moment in terms of sorting and waste recycling.
There are companies in Russia that recycle waste. The only plant in the whole country that, like in Japan, makes granulate from old plastic bottles to produce new ones, is located in Solnechnogorsk, Moscow region, and has been operating since 2009. Excursions to the plant were previously organized. One of the participants noted not very pleasant smell: bottles are brought here from all over the country from garbage containers, and in Russia it is not customary to wash waste.
The bottles are converted first into PET (polyethylene terephthalate) flakes and then into granules, which are used to make bottles. Plarus sends granules for quality control to the plant of JSC Plant of New Polymers Senezh, a manufacturer of primary PET production, part of the same corporation.
PET flakes.
The RBgroup plant operates in Gus-Khrustalny: it sells PET flakes and polyester fiber, from which “synthetic fluff” is made for stuffing children’s toys, pillows, and “balls” for children’s furniture and chair-pillows.
PET granules.
PET granules are used to produce packaging for auto chemicals, cosmetics, containers for beer and soft drinks, milk, water, oil and juices, for bags, jackets and other clothing, trays for confectionery, containers, cans of household goods and electronics.
The bottle segment in Russia is one of the key ones. Baltika, one of the companies directly associated with it, invested 20 million rubles in separate waste collection in 2017 and installed 2.5 thousand special containers in 20 Russian cities, transferring 914 tons of PET for recycling.
Blanks for plastic bottles.
Waste paper is also recycled in Russia, including in production facilities left over from the times of the USSR. The League of Waste Paper Recyclers unites 60 companies, which account for 80% of all recycled paper in the country. The state helps companies with Law No. 458 “On Production and Consumption Waste”: it provides for the obligation of manufacturers of any products to recycle 20% of the packaging, otherwise they must pay an environmental fee.
Each ton of waste paper costs about 10 thousand rubles, while 60 billion rubles worth of it is taken to landfills per year. They process 3.3 million tons of the 12 million tons that are generated per year. Processing facilities are capable of “digesting” 4.15 million tons, so they are experiencing a shortage of raw materials. In 2016, the League had to lobby for a ban on the export of waste paper so that this waste would not be exported from the country for 4 months.
A shortage of raw materials leads to the closure of projects. “The Germans who own the Knauf plant in St. Petersburg are shocked by what is happening in our country. The plant was supposed to increase production volumes for processing raw materials by 50%, but due to a shortage of waste paper, the project was frozen. They decided to carry out only modernization, as a result of which in 2018 the volume of waste paper processing will be 290 thousand tons per year, but they could process 400 thousand tons. But the paper rots in landfills,”
The choice of recycling method depends on the type of waste. There are three technologies:
- Burial. The most popular method. Landfills are organized outside the city, away from populated areas, highways, reservoirs and forests. They choose deep ravines, dry ponds or artificial pits. At modern landfills, all established environmental standards are observed. Thanks to this, harmful fumes from rotting garbage do not enter the atmosphere, and the risk of fire is minimized. Solid household waste classified as Group IV is stored. Hazardous industrial waste is also subject to disposal at specialized sites. The products are first cemented and rendered harmless.
- Burning. Thermal treatment is carried out in incinerators. Liquid, solid, gaseous and some types of hazardous waste are disposed of using this method. The main advantages of the method are saving land resources and generating heat in the process. However, unwanted substances and dioxins are released into the atmosphere. In addition, industrial-scale combustion requires expensive equipment and the work of qualified specialists.
- Recycling. The garbage is sent to factories where it is processed. As a result, new materials suitable for use are obtained. Energy-containing waste is used to generate electricity or processed into fuel.
Our company sends all types of waste for recycling. Experienced specialists accurately choose the right approach, ensuring the safety of the environment. We work with industrial facilities, construction sites and individuals. Conveniently leave a request on the website or by email [email protected].
For the last year I have been living in a truly bearish corner - at least this is the impression that is created after a good dozen shops within walking distance, a stack of shopping centers and other “benefits of civilization” that were extremely rare, but still had to be visited. Now this is not the case - the nearest store is a couple of kilometers from the house, the bus stop, school and pharmacy are even further away.
Covering this distance lightly is not difficult, with two small children it is already more difficult, but this is not about that, but about the fact that garbage containers are also somewhere on the horizon.
The city is small, and there is no talk of any sorting of garbage here, and it will not help: there are no waste processing plants in my area. However, this is true almost throughout the country, with very rare exceptions. In supermarkets, a huge row is occupied by plastic disposable tableware intended for picnics, where in most cases it ends up being left behind. And in the European Union, which is usually criticized, they want to approve a directive to combat plastic waste. They are going to completely abandon disposable items that use plastic to make them. Statistics provided by the EU say: more than 70% of all generated waste is plastic. The European Union plans to ban as many as ten categories of goods (yes, this is a drop in the ocean in general abundance, but Moscow was not built right away), including sticks for balloons, cotton swabs, cocktail straws, and so on in the same spirit. For these things, it is easy to find analogues made from natural materials, or at least those that have a more gentle impact on the environment. The same European Union sets a goal: by 2025, find a way to process and subsequently use 95% of all plastic produced. What now?
Of the total amount of resources extracted by humanity, only 10% are used to make products that we really need and benefit, and another 90% are future waste. I remember a phrase from some speech by Mikhail Zadornov - “We didn’t miss the quality, but the bright cover, the packaging!” Apparently, the statistics are right, and in some cases frankly lousy quality is forgiven for a beautiful box. And God bless her, with that packaging, if there was somewhere to put it, but there’s nowhere! Solid waste, also known as municipal solid waste, tends to accumulate. Proper disposal and recycling are still at the level of the exception rather than the rule, although it should be quite the opposite.
Many European countries have an interesting system: instead of shifting the headache of waste disposal to municipal authorities, the legislation has once and for all decided that the manufacturer is responsible for recycling the packaging of his product. A consumer can come to any supermarket and hand over absolutely any container, which will be sent back to the manufacturer for further processing, and the store is obliged to accept it and give it a certain penny at the checkout. The logic is outrageously simple: if you have to spend resources on recycling the containers you made, then you will try to use packaging materials as economically as possible. Even if you include the cost of processing in the price of the product, this stage still cannot be avoided. And here are the consequences: in Russia, municipal enterprises, not businesses, are responsible for the removal and disposal of waste. There is no need to talk about the cleanliness of cities in Europe and Russia. I really want to stay with rose-colored glasses - I still believe that it’s all about the problem of waste disposal, and not the ability to calmly screw up on the street/in nature and go on about your business.
Be that as it may, waste disposal, be it raw materials from enterprises or residential areas, is a very painful issue for Russia. There are not waste recycling plants in every city: in some places there are, of course, but mostly these are enterprises that can only offer banal waste incineration, and not its full-fledged recycling. All manipulations with waste at such enterprises are most often carried out manually, which increases the labor intensity and duration of the process. But the West, for the most part, abandoned this method - environmentalists proved long ago that when burning garbage, no less (or even more) harmful substances are released into the environment than as a result of the work of any industrial enterprise. The path of simplification is not always the most correct, but for some reason it is precisely along this path that Russian utility workers are skipping, and I don’t mean ordinary hard workers, but the higher stratum. Where do trash usually go? To the nearest landfill. Cities are overgrown with such landfills, which from time to time are covered with a thick layer of clay and earth to give them a more or less decent appearance. But you can’t constantly increase the height of the landfill, right? And there are fewer and fewer free places on which to place another landfill every day, especially around megacities. But the amount of garbage is not decreasing; rather, the opposite is true. Local managers cannot, or do not want to solve this problem, so the matter came up with a question to the president during the hotline. The question was asked last year, and the landfill in Balashikha was closed. But it would probably be more correct to say that it was simply moved from Balashikha.
And here's what's interesting. If European countries are concerned about where to dispose of the accumulated garbage, how to recycle it, and how not to harm the environment, then some Asian and European countries do exactly the opposite: for them, garbage, whether their own or someone else’s, is a way to make money. In pursuit of replenishing the treasury, they buy waste from neighboring countries in order to dispose of it on their territory. For example, the capital of Ghana, Accra, one of the city's districts is a natural cemetery for electronic waste. Broken electronic devices, old batteries, computers - almost 215 thousand tons of this stuff is imported to Ghana every year from Western Europe to rest in a “personal” landfill. Add here almost 130 thousand tons of your “goods”, and do not forget to take into account that local waste processing plants are very far from the level of modern and environmentally friendly plants. Yes, some of the waste is recycled, receiving the status of recyclable materials, but the lion's share is simply buried in the ground. And let it be buried, be it paper or food waste, but no - for the most part it is plastic of all stripes, and heavy metals. By burying this “wealth” again and again, Ghana is gradually acquiring the status of an environmental time bomb.
Using the example of the Citarum River in Indonesia, we can talk about a situation that has long ceased to be something terrifying for a number of countries, and, so to speak, has become a habit among them, turning into something commonplace. So, Citarum is a deep stream running past Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, towards the Java Sea. It is very important not only for the five million people permanently living in its basin, but also for the whole of West Java as a whole - water from Citarum is used in agriculture, water supply to industry, and much more. But, as usually happens, several dozen textile enterprises lined up on the banks of this river, which “donate” waste to Chitarum in the form of leftover dyes and other chemicals. If this could be done, then the problem is small: wastewater treatment plants could at least solve this problem a little. The fact is that the river is very difficult to see, and not to be confused with another landfill: its surface is completely covered with a variety of garbage, most of which is the same plastic. In 2008, the Asian Development Bank allocated half a billion loan dollars that were to be used to clean up the river: the Citarum was called the dirtiest river in the world. The subsidy went as intended, but things are still there. While those in power were deciding what to do with the river, the people were so accustomed to throwing everything unnecessary into it that the proverb about the hunchback and the grave comes to mind. Moreover, fishermen who were left out of work due to the pollution of Citarum (fish that managed to survive and adapt to living conditions in such a cesspool are simply dangerous to eat) have found a new way to earn money: they collect plastic waste from the surface of the river and They hand it over to recycling centers, where they are paid a small penny for it. So everyone is happy - some “laundered” the money, others continue to earn money, and others don’t bother with a place to throw away their garbage. The fish is just unhappy. But she is silent, which means everything is in order.
It is also silent in the Pacific Ocean, where a real island has been formed from plastic waste. I have already mentioned it on this resource, I will provide the link at the end of this article. Dozens of “entrepreneurs” also gather here every day, collecting everything valuable from the garbage patch. It’s a shame that for many of them this is the only way to earn money.
All over the world, researchers of this problem unanimously repeat: we need to be more economical, this is the only solution to the “garbage issue.” Instead of throwing a can or shampoo bottle into a landfill where it will be buried in the ground and left to decompose for years, you can recycle it into something useful. This option is especially respected in the West, because recycling means that you can earn/save money/save once again, or even more, from conventional waste.
In Russia, South America, Africa and Asia, people have not yet developed a rule for themselves - to sort garbage. Despite the fact that it is outrageously simple, we still throw everything in one container - construction waste and waste from cooking, newspapers we read, glass bottles, and so on, so on, so on. We don’t yet have containers in public areas with the inscriptions “For glass”, “For food waste”, “For plastic”, and so on - what kind of “specialized” containers can we talk about, if ordinary ones cannot be found everywhere? , as it is now in my place of residence. In Western Europe and North America, a similar method has long been practiced, because they have realized that it is easier and more economical to sort waste directly in residential areas, and the resources that are freed up at enterprises exempt from sorting can be used for recycling.
An interesting system exists in Germany. In addition to the usual separate waste collection here, there is also Duales System Deutschland GmbH - in fact, a legislative requirement according to which any manufacturer is obliged not only to reduce the amount of material spent on product packaging, but also to develop it either quickly degradable in the natural environment or not special hassle during processing at the relevant enterprise. If only we had such a law! But so far this level is only in Germany; even other European countries have not kept up with it - theoretically, Germans can even recycle waste from other countries, not just their own.
They solve the “garbage issue” quite well in Australia: every quarter, up to 350 Australian dollars are allocated in each locality, intended specifically for waste removal and recycling. Yes, landfills exist, but rather as a temporary storage facility, a kind of transshipment base: waste sorting also takes place here, but in a more global sense. Construction waste is transported in one direction, waste products from livestock farms - in the other. Each landfill has its own purpose, and each type of waste has its own processing method and options for further use.
However, as the most original way of recycling waste, I would like to highlight Semakau, one of several dozen Singapore islands. The reason for the separation is simple: the fact is that this piece of solid earth is not earth at all, or rather, not all of it consists of it. Semakau is an artificial island whose construction began in 1999 and is not expected to be completed until 2035. Since Singapore is made up of many islands, it is simply not possible to organize a landfill in the literal sense of the word, but this does not make the garbage any less. The islanders have found an interesting solution: approximately 38% of the waste produced can be burned, another 60% is sent for recycling, and the remaining 2% of waste that cannot be burned or usefully disposed of is sent to Semakau. Now its area is 350 hectares, and continues to constantly grow. The construction of Semakau required 63 million cubic meters of waste: before being sent to the “construction site,” it was poured into durable plastic blocks, subsequently securely covered with an impermeable fabric membrane. The blocks are poured into a closed “bay”, fenced off like a dam, preventing their spread across the ocean. The resulting surface is consolidated, covered with a fair layer of fertile soil, planted with trees and turns into several hundred square meters of a completely habitable, beautiful area. The water quality in the water area around Semakau is continuously monitored: over all these years it has not suffered, so the local ecological situation is quite trustworthy - you can swim here, and the fish caught in the vicinity of the “garbage island” can be eaten.
In Russia there are more than 14 thousand large landfills with a total area of more than 4 million hectares. According to estimates by the independent environmental organization Greenpeace Russia, Russians throw out 70 million tons of household waste every year. This is 10 times the weight of the Cheops pyramid, which weighs 6.2 million tons.
Once again, the problems of the industry with waste management were recalled by the events in Volokolamsk, where gas emissions at a landfill led to the poisoning of children.
While Russia does not know what to do with billions of tons of waste, many countries are turning it into a resource, and instead of landfills, they are building recycling plants.
Eco-factories for waste disposal
One of the most famous waste recycling plants Spittelau is located in the center of the Austrian capital of Vienna - next to office buildings, luxury housing and a kindergarten.
Every year the enterprise disposes of 250 thousand tons of waste. The ash that remains after heat treatment is used to produce artificial sand or ceramic and concrete products. And the heat released by burning waste is enough to heat more than 60,000 apartments in Vienna.
The main feature of the plant is its treatment facilities. They occupy 2/3 of the enterprise’s area and ensure Spittelau’s environmental safety. To avoid the release of chemicals into the atmosphere, the exhaust gas undergoes an effective three-stage purification system.
The plant became famous thanks to its. It appeared in 1989 as a result of the reconstruction of a waste processing plant that was damaged by fire. The “redesign” of the building was carried out by one of the leading architects of the twentieth century, Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The building received mosaic wall decor, facing lines and a huge golden ball at the top, where the view cafe is now located.
Spittelau waste treatment plant in Vienna
The French, along with the Austrians, are also building waste disposal plants in cities. Built on the same principle in 2009 plant in Issy-les-Moulineaux. It destroys 2.3 million tons of waste per year and provides district heating for an entire city of more than 65,000 people.
Sweden takes the lead in recycling all waste: 99% of garbage is destroyed here. There are 32 waste processing plants in the country, including the largest and most powerful in the world EcoEnergy plant. It is located in the city of Uppsala, 70 km from Stockholm.
Despite the fact that Sweden receives about 800 thousand tons of waste annually from neighboring countries, the plant is only 75% loaded. The company provides hot water and heating to the entire city of Uppsala and its surroundings, as well as 40% of the facilities in the Swedish capital.
EcoEnergy plant in Uppsala, Sweden
In Asia, Japan holds the lead in the construction and management of waste incineration plants. The first waste incineration plant in Tokyo was built back in 1924. Now there are 22 ultra-modern enterprises operating within the city. One of them - Katsushika plant. The waste here is dumped into a 30-meter pit, where it is mixed using a special ladle and dumped into the furnace. The exhaust gas is cleaned of harmful substances and released through a high pipe into the atmosphere.
Taiwan has the world's first and only mobile waste recycling plant. The enterprise on wheels travels through remote areas of the island, picks up garbage and produces tiles from it. The plant runs on solar panels. It takes him less than an hour to create 10 squares of tiles. In the future it can be used for construction work.
Katsushika waste incineration plant in Tokyo
Second life of waste
Not only heat and electricity are obtained from recycled materials. For example, in Japan, about 90% of all plastic bottles are recycled into new fabrics, which are used to make uniforms for Manchester United. In addition, crushed non-burning waste is used to build artificial islands. One of them will host part of the Summer Olympic Games in 2020.
They decided to use the idea of using garbage for construction in India. The country has a particularly difficult situation with household waste - almost half of the garbage is simply not collected. Therefore, the government has obliged road companies to use plastic - plastic bags, chocolate wrappers, cookie packaging - to build new highways. It partially replaces bitumen, which is used to produce asphalt.
Road surface in Ghana made from plastic waste
People are also trying to live without waste in the United States, where aluminum cans have become one of the main sources of income for waste recycling companies. In addition to new cans, aluminum is used to make bicycles and car parts.
In Switzerland, the Immark plant extracts valuable metals from used equipment - gold, silver, aluminum and iron. To do this, all equipment is sorted, processed and cleaned.
In Norway, food waste is processed into fertilizer and biogas, which is used as fuel for garbage trucks. It is planned to switch city buses to biogas. The plastic is pressed and reused: 1 kilogram saves one and a half liters of oil in plastic production plants.
In China, used cardboard boxes are used to make paper and cardboard. Household waste, which contains metal, aluminum and plastic, is used to make new toys, clothes, and dishes.
Immark plant in Switzerland
Separate waste collection: state policies
To encourage the population to sort waste, governments have developed various penalties:
in Japan, illegal dumping of garbage is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of 10 million yen (more than 5 million rubles as of March 2018);
in Switzerland, for every 5 kilograms of unsorted household waste you need to pay 2 to 3 francs. For rubbish not in a special bag there is a charge of 300 francs;
In Germany, failure to comply with the rules for sorting household waste is equivalent to a violation of public order. The fine for the first case does not exceed €10-50. Repeated violations result in a fine of €2,500;
in the southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen, individuals are charged a fine of 50 yuan (about $7), and organizations - up to 1,000 yuan (about $145);
in Ireland there is a fine of €5,000 or more; The maximum penalty is 12 months in prison.
In Japan, so that guests of the country also comply with the rules of separate waste, there are special trash cans: the holes in them are made so that nothing other than what they are intended for goes in there
Waste disposal and recycling in Russia
According to statistics from Rosprirodnadzor, in 2016, 5 billion 441.3 million tons of various waste accumulated in the country. About 4-5% of this waste was burned or recycled. The remaining 95-96%, or 35 million tons, were taken to landfills, legal or spontaneous dumps, where the waste will rot for centuries. It takes more than 400 years for a plastic bottle to decompose, 200 for an aluminum can.
Name |
Specialization |
Open |
Throughput per year |
Novokuznetsk plant (Kemerovo region) |
Recycling, waste disposal |
No data |
|
Kursk plant |
Garbage recycling |
2013 (closed) |
|
“Clean City” (Krasnoyarsk) |
Garbage sorting |
2013-2017 (work suspended) |
730 thousand tons of solid waste (1.8% of Russian solid waste) |
Orenburg plant |
Garbage recycling |
250 thousand tons (0.6%) |
|
Special plant No. 2 (Moscow) |
Burning garbage |
1975 - present time (with breaks) |
130 thousand tons (0.3%) |
Special plant No. 3 (Moscow) |
Burning garbage |
200 thousand tons (0.5%) |
|
Special plant No. 4 |
Burning garbage |
1983 - present time (with breaks) |
250 thousand tons (0.6%) |
Total: 1.56 million tons (3.8%) |
In 2017, one of the largest landfills, the landfill in Balashikha, was closed. However, even after closure, such landfills continue to pose a danger. If reclamation is not carried out, the sediments that end up in the garbage will pollute the surrounding soils and groundwater.
The main reason for problems with waste disposal is the lack of a waste management strategy. According to the tradition that has developed in the USSR, garbage is simply taken to landfills and buried there. In addition, the requirements for landfills are not always strict and they are not always observed. For example, in Balashikha, the housing stock turned out to be much closer to the landfill than determined by law.
Another reason is the lack of a culture of waste management among people. Often broken furniture, car parts, batteries, milk cartons, and plastic bottles are simply thrown into nearby forests, ravines, ditches or under fences. According to statistics, each Russian annually leaves behind an average of 400 kg of garbage.
The authorities began reforming the industry back in 2015. According to the plan, the reform should increase the volume of municipal solid waste recycling from the current 4-5% to 80% by 2030. But budget funds continue to be allocated for the construction of new landfills and waste incineration plants, and not for the creation of container sites or waste sorting enterprises.
Darina Shvartsman