PIK will become the lord of the flies
The PIK Group became a co-owner of the Zeroniks waste processing company (operating under the Zeronix brand), follows from the USRLE data. The subsidiary of the PIK-Innovations group received 95% of this company in the fall of 2021, the remaining 5% from June 2022 belongs to the startup itself. Ilya Balandin, head of the venture investment department and member of the board of directors of PIK, became the CEO of Zeronix in April 2022.
A spokesman for PIK declined to comment. RBC sent a request to Zeronix. Before the transfer to the control of PIK, its founder was an individual entrepreneur Andrei Mikidenko, it was not possible to contact him.
Now the PIK group is building 5.9 million square meters. m of housing, according to this indicator, it ranks first in Russia. The main shareholders of the group are its president Sergey Gordeev (59.33% of shares) and VTB Bank (almost 19%). In addition to housing construction, PIK is engaged in its operation, the production of building materials, elevators and furniture, and controls the manufacturer of equipment for the “smart” home Rubetek. The group invested in Samokat retailer and Kitchen on the District food delivery service, later selling shares in these projects.
What does a garbage startup do?
Zeronix provides services for the collection and disposal of waste, their sorting and processing into secondary raw materials, according to the company’s website. The startup plans to involve “atypical types of waste” in recycling and is engaged, in particular, in the recycling of building materials, organic waste and composite paper, which includes coffee cups, Tetra Pak packaging, paper containers for takeaway food.
For organic processing, the company breeds black soldier fly larvae. These larvae feed on food waste and process it into humus, a natural fertilizer, and the larvae themselves are sold as a food supplement.
Composite paper is made up of paper, plastic and aluminum. Due to the multi-component nature of this material, it is difficult to recycle. Zeronix uses the dry-pulverizing method: paper is crushed and separated by air currents into polyaluminum and cellulose. These materials can be used to make paper, cardboard, pipes, building mix additives such as plaster.
The startup is also developing technologies for recycling construction waste, for example, it is exploring the possibility of producing pallets from pressed wood waste. Curbs, trash cans, flower beds can be made from fragments of bricks and concrete slabs, Zeronix notes.
The company’s website states that it works with packaging manufacturers, commercial and industrial enterprises, residential and office complexes, but does not name specific clients. Zeronix technologies are being used to recycle coffee cups, which are collected at select Leroy Merlin stores, and to recycle plastic bottles.
How much has already been invested in Zeronix technology is unknown. But, for example, the Entoprotek company, which also processes organic matter with the help of larvae, last year attracted $2 million in investments from the Israeli Granot. In general, the processor announced plans to raise $30 million by the end of 2022. The structure of Rostec RT-Invest plans to invest about 2 billion rubles. in the construction of five complexes for the processing of construction waste, and the construction of the largest plastic processing plant in the Moscow region will require 9.9 billion rubles.
How relevant are the company’s developments
Of all Zeronix services, the recycling of construction waste, of which about 70 million tons are generated annually in Russia, can become the closest activity to the core business of the PIK group. In addition to housing construction, the group is actively involved in renovation projects in Moscow, and it is the demolition of buildings that generates a significant part of such waste.
Almost 80% of construction waste is not recycled today. But by 2035, the authorities intend to reduce the volume of their disposal at landfills to almost zero and increase the share of waste used in the production of building materials from 1 to 10%, follows from the draft strategy for the development of the building materials industry. The Ministry of Construction has updated the rules for the demolition of buildings and the disposal of construction waste: now they need to be sorted right on the construction site.
Processing of organic waste is also relevant now, since the content of organic matter in waste can be up to 35% in some regions of Russia, says Denis Butsaev, CEO of the Russian Environmental Operator (REO). Now, according to the REO, composting methods are mainly used for processing organic matter: 1.7 million tons per year are processed this way. These capacities are planned to be increased to 11.4 million tons. In general, the volume of organic waste in Russia is estimated at more than 260 million tons.
Tetra Pak and other composite paper make up about 1% of household waste, says Tatyana Nagorskaya, head of the Separate Collection environmental movement. But, according to her, the issue of recycling is acute. There is not enough capacity for this in Russia, Butsaev agrees. “We have data on four processing plants with a capacity of 23.5 thousand tons [в год], while there are millions of products in this package on the shelves of the country,” he said. In June, the Swedish authorities banned Tetra Pak from exporting products to Russia, but the government announced the start of an experiment to develop analogues of this package. One of the main problems in the processing of organic waste and composite paper is the poor system for collecting these wastes, says Nagorskaya.