Cartridge Recycling: Canon’s Society-Driven Green Initiatives
“All people, regardless of race, religious or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future.” Since adopting kyosei as their corporate philosophy in 1988, every venture by Canon has embodied that very ideology of mutually beneficial partnership. Customer service, investor relations and employee welfare are of highest priority to Canon, reflecting our commitment to cooperation.
Kyosei guides our dedication to protecting one of our most vital shared resources – the environment we live in. Apart from developing energy-efficient products through environmentally-friendly processes, Canon also has the world’s inaugural extensive cartridge recycling programme in place.
The Canon Recycling Programme
Imagine the environmental impact of the millions of ink and toner cartridges being thrown away each day throughout the world. Not only is this harmful to the environment, it is also a significant waste of resources. By adopting a proper recycling programme, it allows us to conserve resources by reusing empty ink & toner cartridges as raw material for new cartridges.
So how does this cartridge recycling process work? The recycling vendor will dismantle the ink and toner cartridges into different components. Plastic and metal, which make up the majority of a cartridge, will be recycled into new plastic and metal products, thereby minimising waste and the need to extract virgin material. Non-recyclable parts will be incinerated. These recycling processes not only help to minimise wastage and pollution, but also maximise resource recovery.
To encourage greater participation, the process of returning used cartridges is made hassle-free for Canon’s corporate customers. Customers can indicate their intention to return empty Canon cartridges when placing new orders for Canon consumables over the service hotline. Upon delivery of the new orders, the courier would assist in collecting the used cartridges for recycling, this comes with no additional effort or cost incurred.
Project Homecoming
Project Homecoming was a joint-brand ink and toner cartridge recycling program that ran from 1 December 2011 to 31 December 2021. With this project, we aimed to create awareness on the recycling of ink & toner cartridges and to engage local communities to do their part for our environment.
The National Library Board (NLB) was the first venue partner for the program. With collection boxes set up at over 20 library branches around the island, it was convenient for users to recycle used cartridges. Our authorized recycler partner, Tes-AMM (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., also ensured that the dismantling, separating and processing of cartridge parts were correctly and safely done.
Through these initiatives, Canon aims to nurture a greater collective sense of social responsibility among our customers, sustaining environmental conservation habits and efforts in the long term.