Canon UK has announced a partnership with recycling specialist, eReco EMEA Corporation Limited, to provide a toner bottle recycling service for customers looking to reduce their environmental impact from print. The scheme ensures that 100% of the used materials will never be put into landfill.
Through the partnership, Canon customers wishing to recycle their toner bottles can contact eReco, who will supply special bags to gather the materials. eReco then collects the full bags and the contents are recycled within the UK. The toner, plastics and metals are streamed for specialist recycling, which is a fully auditable process – providing essential data for organizations that need to comply with environmental policies such as ISO14001.
Materials recovered in the process are used to manufacture a variety of products including washing machine parts, traffic cones, building materials, fire alarm casings and games consoles. These products may then, in turn, be recycled at end of their own lifecycle.
“Historically, there have been inadequate facilities and structure within the UK to handle this type of waste,” said David Lucioni, Environment and Product Safety Manager, Canon UK. “There is no economical value in the bottles and for that reason there have, until recently, been no contractors in the UK prepared to do anything other than export them for incineration.”
Canon’s partnership with eReco supports its corporate philosophy of ‘Kyosei’, which means living and working together for the common good. The scheme further supports Canon’s global certification to ISO14001 whilst providing customers who want to participate with a way of achieving their own environmental objectives. Canon says it is committed to taking a full lifecycle approach to recycling, from the initial concept through to disposal, and also operates a pan-European scheme for recycling toner cartridges.
“The environment is at the heart of Canon’s business and its employees and we work hard to reflect our strategy onto our customers in order to help them reduce their own environmental impact, and that is why we have partnered with eReco,” added Lucioni. “In order to provide our customers with a sound environmental recycling policy, we spent three years searching for a suitable scheme and, after several trials, it is clear that eReco supports our own beliefs and offers our customers an effective service.”
Jane Taylor, General Manager, eReco said: “At eReco we operate a zero landfill policy and are always delighted to partner with organisations that share our passion for recycling. We have clients in many different sectors but Canon UK is the first print manufacturer to take advantage of our toner bottle recycling services.”
This latest partnership with eReco is one of many initiatives within Canon’s environmental policy. Last year it celebrated its 10-year anniversary as conservation partner of WWF, the conservation charity marking ongoing commitment to developing sound environmental practices and raising awareness and funds for conservation across the globe. One initiative to come out of this partnership is the WWF-Canon Polar Bear Tracking Programme. Launched in 2007, Canon’s support has enabled the tagging of at least two polar bears in the Svalbard Arctic with radio collars to allow WWF scientists to monitor their positions via satellite.
The toner bottle recycling service is chargeable to customers wishing to opt in to the scheme and currently costs £30 per bag +VAT.