Practicing Recycling with Less Environmental Impact Based on the Comet Circle
The Ricoh Group clearly prioritizes recycling methods to promote its recycling activities. Recycling collected products into commercially useful products generates less environmental impact and creates greater associated economic benefits than if they were disassembled and sorted to be recycled into resources/energy. This idea is represented in the Comet Circle. The flow of the recycling process, from the recovery of copiers collected from the market to the launch of recycled copiers, is shown in the second innermost loop. The recycled copier business contributes to the creation of a recycling-based society, and we will, without a doubt, develop it.
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Sales of Recycled Copiers 
(Ricoh/Japan)
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imagio Neo 452RC/352RC |
Since the launch of the recycled multifunctional digital copier, imagio MF6550RC, in December 2001, Ricoh has increased the number of models available. At present,
a wide variety of recycled machines with a copying productivity ranging from 35 pages/min. to 70 pages/min. have become available. Recycled machines are based on used copiers collected from the market. Compared with new machines, the environmental impact of a recycled copier over the whole of its lifecycle from production to disposal is greatly reduced. More than 80% (mass ratio) of the parts used in the imagio Neo 352RC/452RC that we launched in fiscal 2006 are recycled parts, and the imagio Neo 352RC gives a 28% reduction in environmental impact over its whole lifecycle compared with newly-produced machines.
LCA Comparison Between a New Machine and a Recycled Copier (CO2 Emissions)
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A comparison is made by calculating the annual environmental impact of new and recycled copiers over a 5-year period and 10-year period, respectively. |
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Figures for CO2 emissions by copiers in operation at customer sites were not included in the calculation of the data. |
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