Every day people come into contact with paper products: newspapers, magazines, books, packaging materials, paper napkins. Unnecessary paper is thrown into the trash. Waste is taken to city landfills, burned or rots. And few people think that waste paper collection as a business is a very promising direction.
However, almost 50% of the total paper produced worldwide comes from recycling paper waste. In Russia, this percentage is no higher than 12. Taking into account the constant increase in the amount of waste thrown away and low competition, the business of collecting and processing waste paper can generate good income.
Where to start a business?
Such a business does not require significant initial capital. At the start, you can accept waste paper yourself. As your business expands, you will need help. The main tasks at the beginning will be:
- Find a room for collecting and temporarily storing waste paper. This could be a garage or an empty building in the yard. The premises must have convenient access.
- Purchase vehicles for transporting paper waste. It is advisable to advertise your business on the van.
- When accepting waste paper, you will need weighing equipment. To collect from the population, a small scale model is sufficient.
It is also necessary to keep a supply of rope and tape in the car to bind paper waste into piles that are convenient for storage and transportation to recycling plants.
Legal registration of business and advertising
If you are not sure that things will work out, then you don’t even have to register an individual entrepreneur in the first month. Waste paper is collected for cash and the waste is handed over to resellers. Intermediaries pay for the goods immediately after receiving the goods.
When expanding your business and establishing partnerships with paper waste recycling enterprises, you need to register an individual entrepreneur or LLC, maintain appropriate records, and pay taxes.
Active advertising is of great importance for the development of the business. Placing advertisements on information boards, printed publications, distribution of leaflets and business cards, radio advertising - all this will allow you to develop your business at a rapid pace.
Classification of paper waste
The cost of 1 ton of such material depends on its quality and composition. Sorting will increase the profitability of a waste paper business by up to 50%. There are several classes of goods:
- Class 1 – waste and trimmings of white uncoated paper and raw materials from unbleached sulphate pulp from manufacturers;
- 2nd grade – cardboard material, booklets, magazines and books without covers;
- Grade 3 – mixed newspaper and paper pulp.
For each class of waste you can find your own buyer. At the same time, the cost of 1 ton of waste paper of class 1 will be $120, class 2 – $75, class 3 – $50.
Where to collect paper waste
Almost any office, school, or store will have similar material. It is better to negotiate the removal of waste paper with the director or general manager. A small store throws away up to 50 kg of cardboard packaging materials every day.
A large amount of paper waste is available in government and municipal enterprises. This is due to the specifics of office work. The archives regularly update their holdings; documents with an expired storage period can be obtained for waste paper. Schools and other educational institutions will become regular suppliers of paper waste.
Helpers are hired to collect waste paper from the population. They can be adult students or schoolchildren. Children can be involved in work only if the employment is agreed upon with the parents. In the first months of work, collection can actually be carried out on specific days in the courtyards of residential buildings or by going around apartments. You need to post advertisements first.
Specialized collection points
As your business expands, you should think about how to open a waste paper collection point. Small basement or utility rooms are rented for a whole working day or several hours. You can also use garages or other spaces owned by your on-site assemblers.
Waste paper is collected from the population at a price of 0.5–3 rubles per 1 kg. If there is sufficient room area, waste is sorted on site. Each reception point must be equipped with scales.
To receive large volumes from large suppliers, collection points are set up on the outskirts of the city. Less congestion on the routes will allow paper waste to be quickly delivered for delivery to the collection point. The rental price will be lower than in the city center. The more such points open, the higher the income a waste paper collection business can generate.
To store large volumes of material you will need a special press.
Where to deliver paper waste
Waste paper is used as a substitute for raw materials by enterprises manufacturing the following types of products:
- packaging materials and containers made of cardboard and paper,
- lumpy egg molds,
- sanitary paper products,
- building materials, including for roofing work (roofing felt, glassine, thermal insulation boards).
The largest volume of cardboard waste is purchased by corrugated cardboard manufacturers. The demand for packaging material is growing every year. And the bulk of this waste is used in the production of toilet paper.
Recycling of scrap into large volumes carried out by pulp and paper mills. If there is such a plant within a radius of 200–300 km from the location of your business, then there will never be problems with the sale of waste paper. Large enterprises buy waste in bulk, from 20 tons or more. Therefore, direct sales require warehouse space where large volumes of wholesale supplies will be collected.
Warehouses will require additional costs, but the price per ton of waste will be higher than when selling to intermediaries.
How to pay for waste paper
Payments to suppliers can be made in cash, non-cash, or exchange for other goods is offered. Each supplier chooses its own mutually beneficial method.
For example, a paper mill or processing enterprise pays a supplier of raw materials with goods of its own production: office paper, notebooks, books at cost or with a small markup. Further, these goods can be exchanged for waste paper from suppliers at the market price.
Collection of waste paper as a type of business is a good solution for people with minimal start-up capital. An established network of suppliers will provide large volumes of waste. After selling waste paper, net income will be more than $40 per ton. Business development could be the creation of your own enterprise for processing paper material.
In addition to the financial side, the business will also have environmental benefits. Recycling paper waste will help reduce deforestation and reduce the size of city landfills.
Recycling as a business is a promising direction commercial activities, especially in demand in large populated areas. This type of commerce can be done by investing $1,000 or more in a startup, starting with the collection and delivery of recyclable materials and gradually developing the business to full-cycle production. Paper, plastic, glass, organic and other waste can be recycled, depending on the demand in a particular market.
Project summary, analysis and industry features
You can organize a business for receiving recyclable materials using various waste materials. The main sources of recyclable materials are glass containers, plastic, paper, metal, and organic waste. It is worth considering what waste can be collected and processed in a particular region, and what can be made from it. Glass is used to make new bottles and fertilizers, waste paper is used in the production of toilet paper, egg trays and other products, and new plastic products are made from plastic waste.
The level of competition in this area is quite low, since for complete equipment production cycle quite large investments are required, and the amount of waste that can be recycled is growing every year.
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What you need to start a business
To launch a startup, you need to draw up a business plan for recyclable materials (see), determine materials and processing technology, sales channels finished products. After this, you need to find a room for receiving raw materials that corresponds to the planned volume of processing. Beginning entrepreneurs can use their own non-residential premises for such purposes - a garage, barn, or rent it at a low price.
Raw materials for processing can also be collected independently, for example, from natural landfills. When starting your production, you need to find suppliers - those who collect waste paper, plastic or other waste.
The main stages of organizing the collection of recyclable materials as a business:
- determination of the sector of work (materials that will need to be collected and delivered to large collection and processing points);
- conducting negotiations with companies that process recyclable materials;
- search for premises;
- purchase of scales and presses (can be used);
- purchasing or renting a truck (as an option, searching for a suitable transport company that will carry out cargo transportation);
- advertising - making a small sign at the entrance to the premises, printing advertisements that are posted around the area (preference - residential areas, schools, universities, food establishments). You can advertise in the local newspaper.
For sustainable collection of plastic or glass, you can install separate garbage containers, having previously agreed on this with local utilities.
Production plan
When opening a business for recyclable materials without investment, you can find a small room for collection (first, the collected waste can be taken to large collection and recycling points, and only after more detailed study market and with the development of the company, you can open your own production). An important condition is to maintain optimal climatic parameters (for example, when collecting waste paper, the room should not be too humid).
It is necessary to equip the premises with scales and a press (compressed raw materials take up much less space in the warehouse and during transportation). To transport recyclables from the collection point to the next point, you will need a truck or car with a trailer.
To open a mini-factory for processing recyclable materials, an investment of at least $10,000 will be required. The room must be dry with water supply, drainage, and electricity. The staff will need to recruit about 20 people - 6-7 people per shift (if a 24-hour production cycle is organized). Workers must sort waste by type, load waste into a conveyor line, and ship finished products.
Economic indicators of business on recyclable materials
To assess the profitability and payback of a business, you need to compare the amount of investment with the amount of one-time and fixed costs. When organizing the collection and delivery of recyclable materials, investments will be required in registering an individual entrepreneur, renting premises, purchasing a press and scales, renting a car and advertising (within $2,000). When organizing a small production, an investment of $15,000-20,000 will be required for the purchase of shredders and other crushing and grinding equipment. With a business profitability of 25-40%, the payback of the project will be 18-24 months (depending on the volume of processing, the input cost of raw materials and prices for finished products). The main items of current costs are premises rental, wage workers, purchase of raw materials, utility bills and promotional expenses.
Details about how cost-effective it is and how to organize it.
Conclusion
Those who have a car with a trailer, a garage or other non-residential technical premises can start their own business with virtually no investment. At first, you can collect waste yourself or organize your own collection point, and later open a mini-factory for waste sorting and shredding different types recyclable materials and preparing them for further processing. Many types of finished products can be made from recycled recyclable materials, which are used in various fields.
You can provide yourself with tax-free income, and also save forests from deforestation. All that is needed to develop such a source of additional income is a small initial capital for the purchase of a truck or a trailer for a passenger car, for transportation of collected recyclables, as well as funds for the purchase of unnecessary paper products from the population.
Waste paper collection as a business- This is a great way to provide yourself with additional income free time or during a crisis period of unemployment. With proper organization and a skillful approach to business, you can get an annual income of 1.5 - 2 million rubles. This work does not require special equipment or qualified employees.
Depending on the starting capital, you can start developing the business alone, and in the future hire schoolchildren as assistants who want to earn extra money after classes. They will do all the work of organizing the notification of residents of residential buildings about the collection of waste paper, and loading it into the car.
Transport
First you need to develop business plan for waste paper as income-generating material. This is a fairly light and voluminous recyclable material that needs to be transported to your own warehouse by a vehicle with a carrying capacity of at least several cubic meters.
In this case, the weight of each cubic meter will not exceed 0.5 tons, which means a heavy-duty vehicle is not needed here. The following types of transport are quite suitable for such purposes:
- all-metal van;
- Gazelle flatbed truck;
- minibus;
- station wagon;
- car with trailer;
You also need to take into account the vehicle’s fuel consumption, for example, on trucks such as Kamaz, it will be unprofitable to travel 100 km to buy just a ton of waste paper, so a compact van or the same car with a trailer would be more appropriate here.
Warehouse space
For those who want to know, how to open a waste paper collection point, the following information regarding the choice will be interesting warehouse and its size.
Initially, you can use an ordinary garage as a storage room; also, an outbuilding in rural areas. Since rent large room is quite expensive, and the initial collection of recyclable materials will not cover such waste.
Determine the size of the room, very important question, since excess free footage will incur unnecessary waste, and too small a size will not allow proper development waste paper business. To do this, determine the area of the city in which the collection work is carried out and the monthly volume of purchased recyclables.
Stages of business development
First stage
Many companies develop their business by recycling waste paper; they set the price for collecting this recyclable material throughout the region, which means that you need to start developing your business by establishing contacts with representatives of such organizations. Initially, you need to determine the following factors influencing your own:
- wholesale and retail prices for all brands of waste paper;
- minimum and maximum volume of accepted products;
- conditions for delivery of goods from a personal warehouse to the factory premises;
- and most importantly, the permissible standards for the level of contamination of recyclable materials with foreign substances or moisture content.
Second phase
The second stage can be considered the beginning of direct work. After choosing a vehicle, preparing a warehouse and concluding an agreement with a processing company, all that remains is to find a source of waste paper, these can be considered:
- educational establishments;
- accounting institutions;
- offices;
- mail;
- the shops:
- residential buildings;
such places can supply:
- unused unbleached paper or its waste;
- printed publications;
- cardboard containers;
- paper packaging bags;
many people will be happy to get rid of such garbage without any financial compensation. For example, they take up a huge amount of space in the premises, their disposal costs money, so an offer to get rid of unnecessary worries for free will be accepted. Educational institutions also have similar archives, which have been collecting tons of waste paper for years. A similar situation exists with stores; they, as a rule, receive goods in cardboard packaging, and then dispose of it in the nearest trash container.
Worth knowing! The average is $20.
Information advertising
Collection of waste paper as a business will bring in constantly growing income only if the work develops and covers new territories all the time, and for this it is necessary to inform people about your activities.
Nowadays, there are many paid and free advertising methods own business, it could be:
- newspaper advertising;
- notices posted at bus stops;
- posting a note on the yellow pages;
- creating a page in in social networks with the proposed waste paper removal services;
- advertising on a local TV channel or radio station;
The larger the client base, the higher the profit and net income from the work done.
According to statistics, more than 100 million tons of paper waste are thrown into the trash every year in Russia; if converted into monetary equivalent, the amount will be 8 billion dollars. How much of this money you can earn will depend only on own desire work.
You can provide yourself with tax-free income, and also save forests from deforestation. All that is needed to develop such a source of additional income is a small initial capital for the purchase of a truck or a trailer for a passenger car, for transportation of collected recyclables, as well as funds for the purchase of unnecessary paper products from the population.
Waste paper collection as a business- This is a great way to provide yourself with additional income in your free time or during a crisis period of unemployment. With proper organization and a skillful approach to business, you can get an annual income of 1.5 - 2 million rubles. This work does not require special equipment or qualified employees.
Depending on the starting capital, you can start developing a business alone, and later hire schoolchildren as assistants who want to earn extra money after classes. They will do all the work of organizing the notification of residents of residential buildings about the collection of waste paper, and loading it into the car.
Transport
First you need to develop business plan for waste paper as income-generating material. This is a fairly light and voluminous recyclable material that needs to be transported to your own warehouse by a vehicle with a carrying capacity of at least several cubic meters.
In this case, the weight of each cubic meter will not exceed 0.5 tons, which means a heavy-duty vehicle is not needed here. The following types of transport are quite suitable for such purposes:
- all-metal van;
- Gazelle flatbed truck;
- minibus;
- station wagon;
- car with trailer;
You also need to take into account the vehicle’s fuel consumption, for example, on trucks such as Kamaz, it will be unprofitable to travel 100 km to buy just a ton of waste paper, so a compact van or the same car with a trailer would be more appropriate here.
Warehouse space
For those who want to know, how to open a waste paper collection point, the following information will be of interest regarding the choice of storage space and its size.
Initially, you can use an ordinary garage as a storage room; also, an outbuilding in a rural area may be suitable for such purposes. Since renting a large premises is quite expensive, and the initial collection of recyclable materials will not cover such waste.
Determining the size of the premises is a very important issue, since excess free footage will incur unnecessary waste, and too small a size will not allow the waste paper business to be properly developed. To do this, determine the area of the city in which the collection work is carried out and the monthly volume of purchased recyclables.
Stages of business development
First stage
Many companies develop their business by recycling waste paper; they set the price for collecting this recyclable material throughout the region, which means that you need to start developing your business by establishing contacts with representatives of such organizations. Initially, you need to determine the following factors influencing your own:
- wholesale and retail prices for all brands of waste paper;
- minimum and maximum volume of accepted products;
- conditions for delivery of goods from a personal warehouse to the factory premises;
- and most importantly, the permissible standards for the level of contamination of recyclable materials with foreign substances or moisture content.
Second phase
The second stage can be considered the beginning of direct work. After choosing a vehicle, preparing a warehouse and concluding an agreement with a processing company, all that remains is to find a source of waste paper, these can be considered:
- educational establishments;
- accounting institutions;
- offices;
- mail;
- the shops:
- residential buildings;
such places can supply:
- unused unbleached paper or its waste;
- printed publications;
- cardboard containers;
- paper packaging bags;
many people will be happy to get rid of such garbage without any financial compensation. For example, they take up a huge amount of space in the premises, their disposal costs money, so an offer to get rid of unnecessary worries for free will be accepted. Educational institutions also have similar archives, which have been collecting tons of waste paper for years. A similar situation exists with stores; they, as a rule, receive goods in cardboard packaging, and then dispose of it in the nearest trash container.
Worth knowing! The average is $20.
Information advertising
Collection of waste paper as a business will bring in constantly growing income only if the work develops and covers new territories all the time, and for this it is necessary to inform people about your activities.
Nowadays, there are many paid and free advertising methods own business, it could be:
- newspaper advertising;
- notices posted at bus stops;
- posting a note on the yellow pages;
- creating a page on social networks with proposed waste paper removal services;
- advertising on a local TV channel or radio station;
The larger the client base, the higher the profit and net income from the work done.
According to statistics, more than 100 million tons of paper waste are thrown into the trash every year in Russia; if converted into monetary equivalent, the amount will be 8 billion dollars. How much of this money you can earn will depend only on your own desire to work.
Opening a business using waste paper is quite an attractive idea. This decision is not only correct, but also economically beneficial. After all, recyclable materials in the form of paper waste cost a penny, but you can sell it for a lot of money.
The prospects of a business idea for selling waste paper
Business organization model
Abroad, the waste paper business is widespread and allows you to special effort get big profits. This activity is beneficial not only from an economic point of view, but also from an environmental one. Most waste around the world goes to landfill, where it decomposes and pollutes environment. But if you properly organize the collection of paper waste, you can radically change the current situation.
According to recent studies, in our country only 12% of waste is sent for recycling. This is a very small part, so the introduction of a new object to the market entrepreneurial activity will be positively perceived by the population. Therefore, there should be no problems with the collection of waste paper and its sale.
Stages of building a waste paper collection business
Success in this matter is possible if you take a responsible approach to organizing all processes - from collecting recyclable materials to storing them and finding buyers.
Selection of storage space
Before opening a business for receiving recyclable materials, you need to take care of the warehouse space. If you have a limited budget, you can use an ordinary garage or utility room located in a rural area. This will allow you to gain a foothold in the market, since renting a warehouse is not cheap.
In the process of work, you should calculate the volumes of recyclable materials that go on sale monthly. Gradually, as you make a profit, you can start looking for a suitable warehouse space. It needs to be rented in an area where it will be convenient to get to it and access it by vehicle. The warehouse should not be too small, which will limit business development, and small, which will entail additional costs.
How to organize the transportation of recyclable materials for business development
To effectively organize the collection of waste paper, you need to find a vehicle with a carrying capacity of at least several cubic meters. The weight of each unit of recyclable material will not exceed 0.5 tons, since paper is light. Therefore, there is no need to buy or rent a heavy-duty vehicle. To meet the needs of the enterprise, it is ideal for: 
- all-metal van;
- minibus;
- truck (like Gazelle);
- station wagon;
- passenger car with trailer.
When organizing transportation for a business using waste paper, it is necessary to take into account that transporting a ton of paper over a distance of 100 km by Kamaz truck will not be economically viable. Fuel costs will exceed the expected profit. Therefore, for such transportation it is best to have a compact van or a car with a trailer.
Recruitment
At the beginning of business development, you can accept waste paper yourself. But over time, there may simply not be enough time for this. The owner of the enterprise must decide more important tasks– look for suppliers and buyers, enter into agreements with partners, etc.
Therefore, to effectively organize a business for the procurement and sale of recyclable materials, it is necessary to hire several workers. Usually this is not difficult to do, since such work does not require high qualifications.
Equipment
To organize a business, you need to additionally purchase some equipment. Waste sorting is an equally important part of the work process. This happens manually and with the help of special units.
A waste paper press will allow you to form lumps from the resulting materials that are convenient for transportation. You don't have to buy it new. Used equipment is quite suitable for the enterprise. The price of such a unit is about 50 thousand rubles.
Where to donate collected recyclables
Before starting a waste paper business, you need to decide where to take the collected recyclables. Usually in every city there are resellers who are ready to accept large quantities of such materials. But such entrepreneurs lower prices for all products, but pay immediately. It is very profitable to cooperate with large recycling collection points or pulp and paper mills. They buy paper only in large quantities, for which they pay well.
But when collaborating with such enterprises, many difficulties can arise. They carefully check all recyclable materials to ensure they meet certain requirements. Materials must be dry and free of foreign matter. If these requirements are not met, the cost of recyclable materials is reduced by at least 30–40%.
Such enterprises never pay off immediately. Usually you have to wait at least 2–3 months, which is not very profitable. Therefore, when collecting waste paper, it is best to enter into an agreement with a reseller who will provide the enterprise with a constant profit.
Where to find clients for recycling waste paper
When starting a business using waste paper, it is necessary to find a constant source of this recyclable material, which can provide a stable income. Reliable suppliers of suitable products are:
- shops (food and non-food);
- educational establishments;
- offices and accounting institutions;
- residential buildings;
- mail.
The above suppliers will be able to provide a developing enterprise with a variety of recyclable materials - paper (used or its waste), printing products, cardboard containers, paper packaging and others. All of them are ideal for further sale and will bring considerable profit.
Many clients will be happy to get rid of such materials with minimal compensation. This applies to archives of accounting or educational institutions. Disposal of paper waste, which usually takes up huge areas, is very expensive. Therefore, they prefer to hand over waste paper and contribute in every possible way to this.
The situation is the same with stores. They receive goods in cardboard or paper packaging. Such containers quickly end up in the trash, which does not bring any benefit. Therefore, it is profitable for them to hand over such recyclable materials and receive a small profit for it. The same applies to the population, which annually throws tons of paper waste into landfills.
How to organize an advertising campaign
In order for waste paper collection to take place as efficiently as possible, it is necessary to advertise your own enterprise. The profitability of a business depends on sales volumes, which can be increased by attracting new customers. How more people will know about the recycling collection point, so more paper and the cardboard will be supplied for further sale.
There are many ways to advertise your own business: 
- placing an advertisement in a newspaper;
- posting advertisements at bus stops and in public transport;
- creating a page on social networks;
- posting advertisements on special pages on the Internet;
- creating your own website;
- advertising on a local TV channel or radio.
The collection of waste paper will be effective if you combine several advertising methods, which will attract the maximum number of customers to your business.