With Australians throwing away more than 18 million printer cartridges every year, Roland DG has launched a new Cartridge Recycle Program designed to reduce the company’s impact on the environment.
“Unfortunately in our industry, more than 5,000 tonnes of empty inkjet cartridges end up in landfill each year, where they have the potential to contaminate ground water and the environment,” says Greg Stone, product and marketing manager at Roland DG Australia.
“We want to work closely with the industry to reduce this impact and Close the Loop is an obvious choice as their ‘zero waste to landfill’ philosophy perfectly aligns with what we’re trying to achieve," says Stone. "As a company, Roland DG is conscious of today’s environmental issues and places great importance on conducting its business in an environmentally friendly manner."
Under the program, Close the Loop, Australia’s largest recycling and resource recovery company for imaging consumables, will reuse or recycle every inkjet cartridge collected.
The new program makes it as easy as possible for customers to recycle empty Roland ink cartridges, at no cost to them. Customers simply drop them in to a participating local dealer or Authorised Roland service agent. The empty cartridges will then be collected on behalf of Close the Loop for processing.
Close the Loop will reuse or recycle 100% of every inkjet cartridge that is collected:
Ink is converted from waste to energy in a contained area. This can then be stored and used in a range of ways.
Plastics are sorted, broken down, and made into pellets to sell to manufacturers for re-use in new products, such as cartridges, pens and rulers.
Metals are separated by eddy current and magnets into ferrous and non-ferrous and sold to or passed on to partners/suppliers for re-use.
For every 1 tonne of imaging consumables collected and recovered by Close the Loop, approximately 10 tonnes of carbon (tCO2eq) savings is recovered.
To find out more as well as detail on how to get involved, go to www.rolanddgcare.com.au/recycle
Roland DG Australia is the Australian-based marketing, distribution and sales arm of Roland DG Corporation of Hamamatsu, Japan, a worldwide leader in the sign, graphic arts, fine art, vehicle graphics, UV, photography, engraving and 3D modeling industries.