Canon Opens New Eco Technology Park for Recycling, Remanufacturing, Environmental Education
Canon Eco Technology Park
Canon Inc. and Canon Ecology Industry of Tokyo, Japan, today opened the new Canon Eco Technology Park, which will serve to showcase the environmental activities of the Canon Group, and also features a plant for recycling and remanufacturing used toner and ink cartridges, as well as used office-imaging equipment. The center is located in Bando City, Ibaraki Prefecture, approximately 85 km north of Tokyo.
The Canon Eco Technology Park, which strives to reduce waste and make effective use of limited resources, includes a showroom and a cutting-edge plant dedicated to re-use and recycling. The facility aims to maximize resource efficiency through the repeated re-use of used products such as the Canon Automated Recycling System for Toner Cartridges (CARS-T), Canon Automated Recycling System for Ink Cartridges (CARS-I), and the remanufacturing of copier/MFPs.
CARS-T consists of closed-loop recycling that involves collecting and re-using plastic extracted from used toner cartridges that is then used as the raw material for new toner cartridges. CARS-I involves collecting used ink cartridges, which are then sorted by model, disassembled, crushed, and washed.
Collected copier/MFPs are disassembled to the part level; worn or deteriorated parts are then removed, and parts are cleaned until they meet Canon’s internal standards for re-use. Remanufactured products that are shipped are said to meet the same levels of quality and reliability as products that were manufactured using only new parts.
“Clean and Silent”
Canon says the work environment inside the plant has been developed under the concept of “clean and silent,” taking employees’ ease-of-work into consideration. The plant building uses a double-skin construction, which blocks heat in the summer and retains heat in the winter. Canon says it designed the plant building to save energy and take into account the building’s impact on the environment. The plant building obtained an A rank in the Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency§ (CASBEE).
Additionally, as the focal point of the Canon Group’s environmental activities where the group’s environmental technologies are concentrated, the Canon Eco Technology Park has established a plant field trip course so that the facility can be used as a place where such school students can learn about the environment.
Through technological innovation and improved management efficiency, Canon says it aims to realize its “Action for Green” environmental vision: “a society that promotes both enriched lifestyles and the global environment.” It strives to reduce burdens on the environment throughout the entire product life-cycle — Produce, Use, Recycle. Under this vision, it’s set a goal of a 3-percent improvement per year in the life cycle CO2 emissions improvement index per product.
In 2016, life-cycle CO2 emissions per Canon product were approximately 34 percent of those in 2008, achieving an average reduction of approximately 5 percent a year.
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