Collection and Recycling (Recycle) | Recycling Systems
Global Collection and Recycling System
To foster a recycling-oriented society, Canon is building collection and recycling systems for used products in Japan, Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.
To make recycling easier, we are also engaged in manufacturing that anticipates recycling from the design and development stage so as to minimize resource use and waste throughout the product lifecycle.
To encourage this kind of manufacturing, in 1998 Canon Inc. issued the Environmentally-Conscious Design Guidance, which is a guide to the design technologies necessary to promoting efficiency in the development and production of environmentally conscious products. This guide is posted on our Intranet for all employees to use at every stage of the product lifecycle, from planning through development and design.
Canon Global Collection and Recycling System
Compliance with the WEEE Directive in Europe
The EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) * was promulgated in February 2003, and came to effect in August 2005.
The WEEE Directive requires member countries to establish and/or amend laws and regulations for collection and recycling framework of electric and electronic equipments.
As a manufacturer of electronic equipments, Canon is complying with the WEEE Directive in the area of product design by establishing an appropriate eco-design framework, and also by placing designated pictogram on products to inform users for the proper collection of end of life products.
For collecting and recycling, each European national sales company participates to country specific recycling schemes for fulfillment of the obligations under the Directive. They also carry out Producer registration as an importer under the Directive to compensate the fee for collection and recycling systems.
The WEEE Directive also requires electric and electronic equipments producers to provide information on parts/ or units needed for special handling in the equipments for intermediate processing contractors of recycling. To this end, Canon is establishing information transfer system for fulfillment of the requests from the intermediate processing contractors of recycling.
Recast of the WEEE Directive is currently under consideration and expected to be promulgated in 2012. The recast will introduce more stringent collection, recycling and recovery targets for used electric and electronic equipments, and will introduce a EU-wide Producer registration form. We will be able to comply with the amendment by our current compliance scheme.
- *WEEE Directive
EU Directive requiring manufacturers/importers of electric and electronic equipments to recover and recycle used devices to prevent environmental pollution caused by them.
Establishing Collection and Recycling Sites in Japan
Canon has 10 centers throughout Japan for the collection of used products, primarily business machines. In addition to already operating a trade-in collection system, since April 2006 we have been certified under the regional industrial waste accreditation system for the Canon Green Recycling Service*1, under which used Canon business machines are collected and processed for recycling. This initiative helps reduce customer workload because it is no longer necessary to issue and manage slips when processing used Canon business machines as industrial waste, enabling a higher collection rate for used products.
Used business machines are collected by our Group companies Canon Ecology Industry and Top Business Machines, which conduct high-level recycling, such as parts reuse and re-manufacturing.*2 We also contract a portion of our materials recycling to outside contractors, to achieve more efficiency delivery during collection for example.
We are working to improve collection rates by offering a number of collection methods for consumables such as toner cartridges and ink cartridges, including collection at retail outlets, and the Bellmark Foundation collection program. Ink cartridges are also collected at post offices and local government offices.
Collection of consumables for recycling in Japan is concentrated at Canon Ecology Industry. The company has developed a fully automated plant for toner and ink cartridge sorting, separating, and recycling for highly efficient recycling operations.
- *1With service charges
- *2Re-manufacturing
Reproducing products with a guaranteed level of image quality and operation quality equivalent to new ones by cleaning and replacing parts after disassembling collected products and sorting reusable parts from worn and deteriorated ones.
Use of Recycling System
To facilitate more efficient collection and recycling, Canon introduced the Recycling System at collection and processing sites in Japan in 2005.
A barcode is attached to used products when they are collected so that collection and recycling can be monitored and managed for thorough, accurate processing.
Canon Inc. and Group companies involved in recycling utilize this system for database storage of recycling progress data at each recycling site.
