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WHY IS LEXMARK &
CLOSE-THE-LOOP IN BED TOGETHER ?
click
on this link below to see video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWDZ4PMVRJQDesign for the
Environment: Lexmark and Close the LooP
http://blogs.whattheythink.com/going-green/2010/02/design-for-the-environment-lexmark-and-close-the-loop
Lexmark International, Inc.sells printing and imaging products
and solutions in more than 150 countries and reported $3.9 billion in
revenue in 2009. By designing with the environment in mind, Lexmark
engineers products and packaging to reduce impacts in production and
chooses materials with the widest range of opportunities for recovery
and reuse.Close the Loop is a resource recovery company, founded in late
2000 in Australia. The primary purpose of the company is to give OEM
manufacturers of printing equipment a way to collect consumables and
recycle them in a responsible fashion. Close the Loop uses patented
processes to recover the plastic, ink, and toner in inkjet and toner
cartridges to bring the materials back into the manufacturing process or
use them as raw materials for new products.We spoke with John
Gagel, Manager of Sustainable Practices at Lexmark, and Jim Tocash,
President of Close the Loop, about their partnership recycling plastic
and ink from Lexmark inkjet cartridges.“When you look at design for
environment, you work with your suppliers at the very beginning of the
design phase to consider the end of life handling,” said John. “We want
the materials we use to make our products to have as small an impact as
possible, at the same time we look for materials that give us the most
opportunities for application at the end.”An inkjet cartridge is
actually made up of a number of materials: plastic, metal, ink, and
foam. Because Close the Loop collects a lot of ink, the company wanted
to find ways to use that ink in new ways.Why a pen? There is a
natural connection between the original form of putting an image on a
page – pen and ink – and putting an image on a sheet of paper with an
inkjet printer. It’s an easy connection for an imaging company! “The pen
is a great way to show consumers what happens when they recycle their
inkjet cartridges,” said Jim. “It shows that we can turn them into
something of value.” Watch the following video to see how the pen came
about.
Turning inkjet cartridges into pens is not a quick process; it
took more than 18 months to bring the pen to the point where it could
be commercialized. Sometime around the middle of 2010 you will find
these on retail shelves and you’ll be able to write with a pen made of
recycled plastic and filled with recycled ink.Because Lexmark has a goal
of “zero waste to landfill” they also collect and reuse toner as an
additive for concrete. And the company is researching using the captured
and recycled plastics in their own products in a true “cradle to
cradle” system.
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