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Environmentally Friendly Copy Machines |
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Reducing product absolute waste from 35% to 5 - 7% (by weight)
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Ricoh's Tokyo Regional Recycling Center was established in February, 1997 within the Northern Tokyo Distribution Center of Ricoh Logistics.
A number of scrapped copy machines are brought here every day. In the past, the metal parts were stripped away and the remaining plastic parts were fed into a shredder before landfill disposal.
This amount represented approximately 1/3 of each unit.
In order to minimize this absolute waste, breakdown and re-use are now considered during the product design stage. Already, product absolute waste has been reduced to between 5 and 7 percent.
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Breakdown and recycling based on data for each unit
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When breaking down a unit to separate and re-use its parts, it is necessary to know which parts were used in what products. Data on mid-production design changes for each product line is also needed. Ricoh, in conjunction with Tohoku Ricoh, has developed a system that manages data for each machine produced to assure the quality of both parts and products. The serial number of each unit to be scrapped is input to the system, which then supplies manufacturing information on that particular item. |
Last Modified : April 1 ,2000
Copyright (C) 1999 RICOH Co,.Ltd. All Rights Reserved. |
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