Sustainability is crucial to society’s
survival. Ricoh believes that a company must take responsibility for
all the materials used in its products. Ricoh does this while focusing
on two points: minimizing the amount of resources extracted from the
natural world, and finding alternatives to resources at risk of
depletion. Toward this end, Ricoh is actively converting the materials
it uses from non-renewable petroleum resources to reproducible biomass
as well as recycling its products. Biomass plastic has already being
used in some Ricoh products.
In a recent highlight, Ricoh developed the world’s first
biomass toner as a genuine manufacturer’s supply item, and released
machines that utilize this toner in the Japanese market. About 80% of
conventional toner is petroleum-based resin. Our new “for E toner”
however, has a biomass content of 25% of the entire mass including the
resin.
The “for E toner” will help reduce environmental impact in the following two ways:
| 1) | Suppressing CO2 emissions from burning the toner printed on used paper. (Including toner elements separated from the paper in the paper recycling process.) |
| 2) | Reducing the use of depletable petroleum resources |
Ricoh got an early start in using
biomass toner in actual products. We will continue accumulating
technologies and know-how on the biomass toner, with the goal of
preserving the environment.
