Ricoh Australia allies with Close The Loop for sustainable recycling
Ricoh Australia, a provider of smart workplace technology, has announced its decision to appoint Close The Loop as its consumables recycling partner. The partnership is laser-focused on enhancing sustainable practices while giving customers an effective and seamless end-to-recycling experience to aid waste reduction.
Close The Loop is the largest recycler of print consumables worldwide, now adding Ricoh Australia to its portfolio of partners. With a stated aim to be the world's preferred premier sustainability solutions company, Close The Loop designs and manages efficient ink and toner take-back, recovery, and reuse programs. These all form part of a larger set of endeavours aimed at minimising waste and propelling society towards a circular economy.
Ricoh's consumers are set to welcome these changes as Close The Loop focuses on a single, unified point of account management contact, with customers able to manage their own collections and order consumables. Close The Loop also offers training to customers on how to place orders and provides an intuitive online customer portal with reporting feature functionality. The portal allows clients to download certificates of destruction, which, if desired, can be scheduled to be automatically sent to customers at agreed intervals. Further encouraging environmental responsibility, Close The Loop gifts customers with educational materials and online resources to promote understanding and awareness of sustainable recycling practices.
Yasu Takahashi, Managing Director, Ricoh Australia, commented on this commitment to environmental responsibility. He stated that "Ricoh is committed to its responsibility towards a proactive reduction of impacts on the environment and strives to achieve a zero-carbon society. Globally, we work towards a sustainable society through a Three Ps Balance: Prosperity (economic), People (society), and Planet (environment). In joining forces with Close the Loop, we are thrilled that both organisations share a faith in a circular economy. Together, we will be extending our customers not only a solidified, more customer-centric toner recycling program but one that aids their sustainability goals."
A recent upgrade at Close The Loop's Melbourne facility has permitted the organization to increase capacity for the transformation of post-consumer soft plastics and toner waste powder into high-value recycled products. These include TonerPlas, an asphalt-improvement agent that creates more sustainable roads. The facility's new machinery also enables Close The Loop to use packaging waste for its recycled plastic injection-moulding resin, with the result that materials can be reincorporated into tertiary packaging items such as Ricoh toner bottles, pallets, crates, and wheelie bins.
This strategic partnership comes on the heels of Ricoh being acknowledged as one of the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations, as published by Canada-based Corporate Knights. This marks the 12th selection for Ricoh including ten consecutive years from 2005 to 2014, and again in 2023. Additionally, the company found its place in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, one of the world's most renowned indices for ESG (environmental, social, and governance), for the fourth consecutive year.
