Ricoh New Zealand will recycle all of its e-waste in a deal with leading ink and IT consumables recycler Croxley Recycling.
Ricoh New Zealand will recycle all of its e-waste in a deal with leading ink and IT consumables recycler Croxley Recycling.
The agreement will see Croxley Recycling collect and recycle all Ricoh e-waste nationwide, including discarded computers, office printers, mobile phones and other electronic equipment.
“Product stewardship is a huge part of the sales process for Ricoh and we’re proactive in the way we seek to handle all of our waste,” said Charley Peace, head of Ricoh NZ’s sustainability and communications unit. "It’s clear that the government will have to make e-waste a priority product as New Zealand has one of the fastest growing waste streams in the world, so we’re just trying to make sure we are compliant and working on the issue. We want to reduce our environmental impact wherever we can and Croxley has offered us a reputably strong way to continue tackling our e-waste strategically,” he said.
Croxley Recycling, an arm of stationery supplier Croxley, recycles imaging consumables such as toner cartridges and offers full-scale printer dismantling and recycling. Croxley Recycling already operates toner cartridge collection and recycling schemes with Ricoh, Canon, Brother, Konica Minolta and Sharp.
The award-winning recycler has been operating for eight years and has New Zealand’s largest network of 14,000 collection points, including businesses of all sizes, schools, universities, hospitals, government departments, banks, home users and retailers. The service is free to consumers and accepts and processes cartridges from all brands.
Croxley recycles more than 99% of all materials processed through its consumables facility. The company diverts more than 400,000 cartridges (200 tonnes) of recyclable material including non-biodegradable plastics from landfill every year.
Croxley MD David Lilburne says the e-waste agreement with Ricoh is a significant step for the recycler and the timing is perfect as the company prepares to relocate its recycling plant from the North Shore to a new facility in West Auckland. “We have just purchased a new shredder, compactor and granulator and this will support our growth plans for 2016 and onwards.”
A significant part of recycling is the security of waste product pathways and finding uses for recycled product, he said. For example, metal and circuit boards are separated for recycling, and plastic is sent to local manufacturers to be incorporated into items including coat hangers and fence insulators. Another of the company’s business partners has developed a pathway for waste toner powder to be used in the production of building material. Croxley is also working with Brother to increase school awareness of ink cartridge recycling and find an easier pathway for parents to recycle via collection points at local schools.
Croxley, now a subsidiary of US-based Office Depot, is New Zealand’s largest stationery wholesaler with a history that stretches back almost 100 years. The company’s iconic brands include Olympic, Warwick and Collins.