OEM drives environmental management in emerging markets.
A recovery and refilling operation for used MFP toner bottles has been opened by Ricoh at a facility in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, that will see the OEM aim to reduce the use of new resources, as well as shorten product supply lead time to customers who would otherwise rely on imports.
Ricoh states that the operation’s contribution to resource conservation allows the company to build on its environmental management in emerging markets like India; and that it will help to reduce the environmental impact such as CO2 emissions during transportation, as well as enabling the company to optimise its inventory.
The operation is driven by Ricoh’s “on-demand toner filling machine”; with the OEM first beginning to recover and refill MFP toner bottles in Japan in 2001. This later expanded to Thailand, China and Hong Kong, with India being the most recent country to benefit from the scheme.
Ricoh added that “an increase of varieties of toner that can be refilled and expansion of operation point” will be its next step in its refill operation.