Page 18 - Print 21 magazine Jul-Aug 2021

Green Printing
continued from page 17
others and sent to Taiwan where it is re-compounded and through injection moulding, used to make the plastic casings around laptop and desktop computers. The metal from the cans
is crushed and sent to OneSteel where it is remanufactured into steel. The plastic from the plastic ink containers is also shredded and sent to Taiwan for remanufacture into the plastic casings.
Close the Loop has other innovative end applications, with much of the waste toner and plastic bags it collects turned into roadfill, enhancing the properties of asphalt. The BIDs from HP Indigo presses meanwhile are collected and sent back to HP Indigo in Israel where they are remanufactured back into new BIDs.
Konica Minolta
A year ago, Konica Minolta brought forward its group level commitment to achieve carbon minus status from 2050 to 2030.
“Right across our business, we are committed to doing things in the most environmentally responsible way possible, including providing free and easy-to-access recycling services,” says the company’s corporate responsibility leader Anastasia Konstantelos.
This includes its partnership
with Close the Loop which provides customers with a free-of-charge collection and recycling program for cartridges and consumables.
Konstantelos says, “They provide a best practice recycling solution that separates plastics, metals and toner so that all components are reused
to produce new products such as TonerPlas, which uses waste toner in an asphalt additive that enhances the characteristics of asphalt roads, and that is infinitely recyclable.”
Konica Minolta’s R&D teams have worked on a number of initiatives
to reduce energy consumption on
its commercial print systems such as its low-temperature fixing toner Simitri, which is coupled with an efficient fixing system.
The company says it has achieved approximately 20-26 per cent less standard power consumption over a one-week period when comparing against earlier models, with CO2 emissions also greatly reduced.
Tatjana Ferguson, product manager, Productions and Industrial Print at KM, says, “Rising environmental awareness is also driving demands
for commercial and label printers, 18 Print21 JULY/AUGUST 2021
Close the Loop: Recycling print media
converters and manufacturers to break away from traditional offset and flexo technologies to shorter, more flexible runs with digital.
“Konica Minolta Australia is committed to doing this in the most environmentally responsible way possible, and has developed local strategies to mitigate the environmental impact of our products and business operations, such as offering to collect and recycle equipment at the end of its contract life,” Ferguson says.
“We also have an equipment recycling agreement and process
to provide secure end-of-life destruction recycling services to
the highest possible standards,” Ferguson says. “All materials received are processed according
to Australian local, state and
federal laws, and done so in an environmentally controlled manner, eliminating waste to landfill.”
For print business owners, this means that when they wave goodbye to their press at the end of its life, they can know that the machine will be stripped down and sorted into
its plastic, rubber, metal, and these elements will then be recycled.
Ricoh has formulated design policies based on recycling and developed various kinds of know- how, including grade labelling on plastic moulded parts, strength design to allow reuse, reprocessing of high-value-added parts, recycling of high-quality materials, easier dismantling and sorting, and strength design to reduce the use of packaging materials.
The company maintains the quality of recycled materials by displaying resin grades on individual parts during manufacture, recycling for each grade after product recovery. From 2016, Ricoh developed recycled materials made from commercially sold recovered materials for interior and external usage.
Ricoh was the first Japanese company to join the RE100, a collaborative global initiatives of businesses committed to 100 per cent renewable energy. In order
to achieve its goal, the company has formulated a Decarbonisation Strategy to transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles.
Ricoh developed the Rico2Ret system to minimise the environmental impact of its products. The system identifies processes with high CO2 emissions and shows how to reduce them. For example, the company developed
a tin-free, low temperature fixing eco-toner with less environmental impact in the production process called PxP toner. By fusing at lower temperatures, the PxP devices consume less energy without compromising print quality. 21
“We also have an equipment recycling agreement and process to provide secure end-of-life destruction recycling services to the highest possible standards.”
– Tatjana Ferguson, Konica Minolta
Ricoh
Ricoh is following its Spirit of Three Loves principle that founder Kiyoshi Ichimura espoused, to leverage its business activities to help resolve social issues through sustainable development goals and other initiatives.
The company aims to achieve up to 95 per cent resource recovery ratio through its national Machine Recycling Programme. End-of-life devices are collected from customers and delivered to recycling partners to reclaim material for reuse in the circular economy.