Brother has cut the ribbon on a remanufacturing service that will arm its partners with a stronger sustainability pitch.
The printer specialist will start remanufacturing inkjet print cartridges at its Recycling Technology Centre in Wrexham, North Wales, and is expecting to process around two million units a year once it is fully operational.
The move to start remanufacturing inkjet cartridges will generate an additional 20 jobs at the Welsh facility.
The vendor is making the free service available to business and home users, providing them with envelopes to send in the consumables, which will then be taken apart, cleaned and reassembled, then refilled with vendor-approved ink.
The firm is able to remanufacture damaged cartridges and has been encouraging users to send in any units they have from the past year to build up the pipeline of products going through the process.
The firm has a track record of remanufacturing toner cartridges, and has put 40 million units back into circulation over the past two decades.
Craig McCubbin, managing director of Brother Industries UK, said the firm had been able to save approximately 5,300 tonnes of CO2 every year by remanufacturing toner cartridges, and would be increasing that by extending its recycling efforts.
“Remanufacturing cartridges saves thousands of tonnes of carbon each year, forming a crucial way in which we can decarbonise the use of – and delivery of – print technology. Becoming the first print OEM to remanufacture inkjet cartridges shows how committed we are to pioneering this change, with our dedicated R&D team creating new ways for users to contribute to circular economies,” he said.
Remanufacturing cartridges saves thousands of tonnes of carbon each year, forming a crucial way in which we can decarbonise print technology
Craig McCubbin, Brother
“This investment is just the start of a new era of sustainability innovation from Brother. We’re continually finding ways to make our products easier and more efficient to remanufacture so that every new product we introduce is more sustainable and longer lasting than the previous one,” he added.
Given the combination of energy, hardware components and its reliance on paper, the printer sector has been under increasing pressure to improve its sustainability position.
Research shared last year from market watcher Quocirca revealed that customers are increasingly looking at corporate sustainability goals as part of their supplier selection process.
The vast majority of those making buying decisions indicated that they want to see a commitment from suppliers to reduce carbon emissions, with Quocirca’s Sustainability market trends study making it clear many users are tracking their print suppliers’ efforts.
Speaking last autumn, Quocirca CEO Louella Fernandes said pressure on suppliers to demonstrate green credentials continued to rise, and it was an issue that had to be seen as a priority by those operating in the print industry.
“A combination of stakeholder expectations and the implementation of legislation such as the corporate sustainability reporting directive [CSRD] are prompting organisations to speed up their sustainability initiatives,” she said. “This is driving a broader cohort of decision-makers to put more emphasis on the sustainability performance of the solutions – and suppliers – they select.”
