Fuji Xerox's integrated recycling systems produce positive results on the environment

Fuji Xerox’s integrated recycling systems that are in operation in Japan and in nine Asia-Pacific countries and territories, including the Philippines, have already produced a positive impact on the environment.

According to Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd., the company has slashed the amount of new resources by 3,860 tons and reduced C02 emissions by 25,000 tons across the region for the last 12 months. The figures do not include the outcome from the integrated recycling system in China, which only started operations recently. To include the amount of CO2 emitted in the production process of parts, the figure was computed converting the cost saved from not purchasing new parts into the amount of CO2 using inter-industry tables.

Helping achieve this was the increase in production of devices incorporating recycled parts to 17,000 units, a significant hike from only 11,000 in 2005, which has consequently resulted to less use of brand new parts.

With environmental issues at the forefront of management challenges, Fuji Xerox has formulated a companywide product recycling policy of “approaching as close to ‘zero landfill’ as possible and promoting the reuse of resources” in order to eliminate waste in products recovered from customers.

In December 1995, Fuji Xerox was the first in the office equipment industry to offer products with recycled parts via the introduction of the Integrated Recycling System in Japan. The total production volume of such machines has topped 300,000 units. Further, to implement the similar activities abroad, Fuji Xerox established and started operation of the system in the Asia-Pacific region, including the Philippines, in December 2004 and in China in January 2008.

Under the integrated recycling system, used copy/multifunction devices are recovered from customers and disassembled, and those parts that satisfy stringent quality standards would be introduced into the production line. Those that cannot be reused would be separated into a maximum of 44 parts categories in Japan and 74 in Asia Pacific. They would be then thoroughly broken down into substances and materials to be recycled, and even the finest metal, rubber and glass resources, which were previously deemed difficult to recycle, are turned into raw material. Thus, Fuji Xerox achieved 99.99 percent of recycling rate in Japan, and 99.3 in Asia Pacific.

Fuji Xerox and its overseas affiliates commit to continuing pro-environment business activities.

In the Philippines, Fuji Xerox has been upgraded to ISO 140001 version 2004 in 2005 and re-certified for another three years.