Xerox Diverts 2 Bln Pounds of Waste

By recycling yet one more 5-pound toner cartridge from a Xerox multifunction system, Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) announced today it has surpassed a sustainability milestone by diverting more than 2 billion pounds of electronic waste from landfills around the world.

Xerox’s environmental program, launched in 1991, achieved the 2-billion-pound milestone through product take-back initiatives, such as the Xerox Green World Alliance, a reuse and recycling program for printer cartridges and toner. The company says that program kept more than 2.7 million cartridges and toner containers and nearly 11 million pounds of waste out of landfills last year alone.

The Alliance is composed of two components – the remanufacturing of cartridges and the recovery and reuse of toner. When a cartridge is at the end of its life, customers send it to Xerox, which then cleans, inspects and remanufactures or recycles the cartridge. Remanufactured cartridges contain an average of 90 percent reused/recycled parts and are built and tested to the same performance specifications as new products.

Customers also send in waste toner, the dry ink that is used to make prints. Xerox then recovers and reuses the old toner by mixing it with new toner, a process the company says does not compromise the product’s functionality.

“Xerox’s experience with reuse, recycling and remanufacturing has not only kept waste out of landfills, but saved the company more than $2 billion as it did so,” said Patricia Calkins, Xerox vice president, Environment, Health and Safety. “If that amount of waste were loaded into garbage trucks, it would fill more than 160,000 trucks, stretching more than 1,000 miles, from Seattle to the Mexican border. We believe sustainability is an integral part of developing products, serving customers and posting profits.”

In addition, Xerox’s waste-free factory initiative has focused efforts on reducing the amount of non-hazardous waste generated by Xerox operations and on responsibly managing waste that cannot be eliminated. Xerox reports that in 2006, it recycled 91% of its non-hazardous waste, up from 80% in 2000.