EU : PRODUKTE DURCH NOW COLLECTS EMPTY INKS & TONERS FOR HP

[Anonymous]

EU : PRODUKTE
DURCH NOW COLLECTS EMPTY INKS & TONERS FOR HP
THURNAU (GERMANY) — Hewlett-Packard Co. has been thinking
green — about how both to lessen its impact on the environment and cut
its production costs.To help achieve these dual goals, the US technology
bellwether, popularly known as HP, has teamed up with a German company
to recycle disposable ink cartridges from HP printers.Once used, the
plastic cartridges would otherwise end up in rubbish landfills or
incinerators, aggravating the problem of solid waste pollution. Together
with its partner Produkte Durch Recycling, HP is trying to set an
example for environmental responsibility, and asking its customers to
join in the effort.

Produkte Durch Recycling, which translates as
Products Derived from Recycling, or PDR, is one of three recyclers that
HP works with worldwide. It handles HP printer cartridges sent for
recycling from Europe, the Middle East and Africa; HP has partnered with
other companies to recycle cartridges in the Americas and Asia.PDR has
already won several awards in Germany for its recycling expertise. On a
recent visit to its facility in the south-central German city of
Thurnau, this Khaleej Times reporter found that PDR seems to be meeting
expectations.

The firm’s operations take place in a suitably
bucolic setting, in a building the size of a warehouse located amid
apple orchards and farms a half-hour drive from Thurnau. In an orderly
but often noisy process, green-shirted employees work alongside conveyor
belts to sort newly arrived cartridges by model type, feed the
cartridges into a crusher and then re-sort the pulverised
remains.Workers use pallet jacks to shunt boxes of cartridges from the
first sorting station to the crushing machine, which spits out a
psychedelic stream of particles, powders and other residue. PDR staff
members shout to be heard above the din, but the noise is bearable.

A
separate unit the size and shape of a space capsule even bleeds unused
ink from each cartridge.Employees package all the leftover plastics,
metals and resins and bottle the unused printer ink. PDR then ships the
materials elsewhere to be used in the manufacture of new cartridges.It’s
all part of what HP calls its “Closed-Loop” Inkjet Plastics Recycling
scheme. Every step in the process is designed to meet hugh standards of
environment awareness and cost-efficiency. But the system depends on
individual, green-minded customers who deliver their used cartridges to
local HP dealers, which then feed the junk into the company’s
international recycling loop.

HP began recycling electronics back
in 1987. It officially launched its HP Planet Partners recycling
programme for printer cartridges in 1991. Since then, the Palo Alto,
California-based company says it has recycled more than 300 million
inkjet and LaserJet printer cartridges.

HP Planet Partners tries
to make it easy for customers in more than 50 countries to recycle
printer cartridges and other IT equipment. In 2007, HP achieved its goal
of recycling one billion pounds of equipment and cartridges, and the
company aims to double that amount by 2010.

HP hopes its sense of
environmental responsibility rubs off on more off its customers.
“The
results are outstanding,” said Bruno Zago, HP’s environmental manager
for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. “Since 1992, HP has
reduced the number of parts in each LaserJet cartridge by 33 per cent,
and the types of plastic resins used by half.”

The Europe, Middle
East and Africa region is HP’s smallest territory, accounting for $5
billion in annual sales, but it’s growing fast. The Americas account for
$9 billion in sales, while the Asia-Pacific region tops the list with
$38 billion.HP delivers 110,000 printers, 75,000 personal systems and
3,500 servers daily, so the challenge it faces in trying to reduce the
environmental impact from all these products is huge. It seeks,
therefore, to design its products, tools and services so that they use
less energy and conserve scarce resources, and it encourages their reuse
and recycling.HP has identified four areas — energy efficiency,
resource conservation, reuse and recycling, and green alternatives —
that it believes to be most important to its customers and where it can
make the biggest positive impact.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/business/2009/December/business_December79.xml&section=business&col=

[Author]

December 14, 2009 at 10:37 AM