Brother: 40 million toners as a milestone
November 22, 2022
Just in time for European Waste Reduction Week (19-27 November 2022), Brother was able to announce a milestone in recycling.
Since the programme began in Europe in 2004, 40 million toner cartridges have been remanufactured or recycled worldwide – lined up, this corresponds to a route from the global Brother Recycling Technology Centre in Wales to the headquarters in Nagoya, Japan.
Customers worldwide can return empty original toner cartridges and ink cartridges to one of Brother’s four recycling facilities in Wales, Slovakia, the USA or Asia. These go through a rigorous testing process in which the components are either reused or, if nothing else is possible, replaced. This means that most are then re-sold as good as new. All parts that cannot be reused are recycled by Brother, so none of them end up in landfills.
Craig McCubbin, Managing Director of Brother Industries UK and Brother Industries Slovakia: “We are really proud of this achievement. Of the 40 million toner cartridges that our customers returned, 86% were remanufactured using our elaborately developed process. This is unique in the entire printer industry.
“Our claim is: We want to reuse as much as possible. In 2021, our remanufactured toner cartridges had a 33% lower carbon footprint than new cartridges. Through recycling, Brother saves around 5,300 tons of CO 2 every year worldwide – that’s how much 1,150 cars produce.”
Brother’s European recycling plants were recently certified as carbon neutral and the take-back system has been certified Zero Waste to Landfill since 2013. By reducing the amount of waste at all stages of the life cycle of its products, Brother supports customers in achieving their own sustainability goals.
McCubbin added, “We promise that we will remanufacture or recycle all parts of a returned cartridge so absolutely none of it ends up in landfill. For an average company, this means savings of up to 40 kg of CO2 per year.
“Feedback from our customers on our recycling program has consistently been very positive, but we’re not resting on our laurels. In the next three years we want to further increase the number of remanufactured toner cartridges. We are also involved in the return of ink cartridges and hardware and have ambitious plans to eventually make all Brother products returnable.”
Brother’s recycling programme began in 2004 processing a few toner cartridges grown to almost 3 million pieces per year. If you like to find out more, you can read about Brother’s remanufacturing process in issue 358 of The Recycler Magazine.
Categories : World Focus
Tags : 40 Million Cartridges Brother Milestone Remanufacturing Reuse
