Consumables
HP Announces Environmental Milestones for Reduced Waste, Materials Reuse and Easier Recycling
Tuesday 16. November 2010 - HP today announced several milestones in the companys push to deliver energy savings, decrease carbon footprint and offer products and solutions that enable customers to reduce their environmental impact.
As part of these efforts, HP is:
Working to reduce waste in its manufacturing, distribution and product development, enabling responsible purchase, use and recycling of products by customers.
Offering ways to help customers reduce waste in their printing uses.
Introducing ways to reduce waste through product packaging.
Achieving industry-leading milestones in recycling and the use of recycled plastic.
“HP is an environmental leader among global companies, and these achievements are important milestones in our ongoing efforts,” said Engelina Jaspers, vice president, Sustainability, HP. “Applying our rich expertise and know-how, were creating more efficient, low-carbon technology solutions that help our customers save energy, resources and costs.”
Enabling reduction of waste and energy, reusing reclaimed materials and designing for ease in recyclability are among the key principles of HPs environmental commitment.
Reducing waste
To date, HP has produced more than 1 billion ink cartridges manufactured with recycled plastic.(1) Through this and other efforts, HP has pledged to use a total of 100 million pounds of recycled plastic in printing products by 2011 (cumulatively, since 2007).
HP has developed manufacturing processes that use recycled plastics, including HP ink cartridges and plastic water bottles, in Original HP ink cartridges to deliver an estimated 22 percent reduction in carbon footprint and a 69 percent reduction in total water use when compared with using virgin plastics in the manufacture of 1 billion Original HP ink cartridges.(2) Recycling efforts by customers and HP have kept approximately 1.3 billion plastic bottles and 160 million HP ink cartridges out of landfills.
HP is improving the efficiency of its recycling processes. The recycled plastic used in HP ink cartridges produced in 2010 and beyond is estimated to reduce total water used in plastics production by up to 89 percent. And, it has up to an estimated 33 percent smaller carbon footprint than virgin plastic in Original HP ink cartridges – even when accounting for the impact associated with collecting, transporting and processing used cartridges and plastic bottles.(2)
HPs dedication to manufacturing products with responsible materials has led to the development of: the planets first PVC-free printer,(3) the HP ENVY 100 e-All-in-One; products made with up to 35 percent recycled plastic, like the HP Deskjet 3050 All-in-One; and the ability to recycle additional types of cartridges made with various plastic polymers through HPs industry-leading “closed loop” cartridge recycling process.
Enabling customer conservation
HP offers ENERGY STAR qualified devices in every aspect of its product portfolio, with products that reduce energy use, resulting in cost savings. Many of HPs ENERGY STAR qualified products also offer automated two-sided printing, enabling customers to significantly reduce waste while printing.
For enterprise customers, HP offers Managed Print Services (MPS). HP helped United Stationers, a leading North American wholesale distributor of business products, reduce its fleet of printers and copiers from 160 different makes and models to just a few HP models for reduced energy and supplies costs.
Saving money with HP MPS was part of a corporate-wide initiative that United Stationers calls its “war on waste,” through which it has achieved 30 percent cost reductions. The company expects to create an additional 20 to 25 percent in savings through planned rollouts of further HP solutions. United Stationers spent 16 weeks evaluating vendors to implement a managed print approach and chose HP as the best collaborator for delivering savings.
HP also is enabling customers who use retail photo solutions to benefit from waste reduction. A 2010 life cycle assessment revealed that the carbon footprint of HP Minilab printers was up to 30 percent smaller than that of silver-halide systems.(4) In one year, this enables a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by an amount comparable to up to 386 gallons of gasoline consumption or approximately 38,000 hours of LCD TV viewing.(5)
If every silver-halide printer system worldwide were replaced with an HP Minilab, the result would be the equivalent of saving the carbon emissions of up to 65,000 cars per year.(6)
HP is enabling small and medium business customers to conserve resources with products such as the HP Officejet Pro 8500A e-All-in-One, which delivers 50 percent lower energy use and cost per page than competitive laser printers and yields an 80 percent reduction in packaging and supplies waste over the life of the printer.(7)
Media designed with the environment in mind
Recycled plain papers with ColorLok Technology yield excellent print quality, equal to many non-recycled papers. Customers can count on bright, vivid colors, dark black text and crisp graphics when using recycled plain papers with ColorLok Technology. Because recycled papers with ColorLok Technology perform as well as many papers without recycled content, customers can reduce environmental impact without sacrificing print quality.(8)
HP graphic arts customers benefit from the companys HP media take-back program(9) and deinking work. For digital production printing, HP is working to improve the use of high-impact inks and the removal of these inks from media for responsible disposal of both ink and media.
As a leader in the digital production printing space, HP is partnering with Stora Enso to conduct research on HP processes and materials. HPs deinking research is part of ongoing collaborative efforts between HP and HP Labs, the companys central research arm, along with leading paper suppliers, digital press manufacturers and research organizations.
HP is now collaborating with UPM to investigate and implement best practices in coated sheet use and disposal. This is part of a large digital print deinking collaboration designed to provide digital media customers more robust solutions with reduced environmental impact.
Innovations in packaging
Several of HPs consumer products are wrapped in reusable totes, offering packaging that is 99 percent reusable or recyclable(10) and allowing customers to reduce their use of plastic shopping bags in the future.
In packaging its consumer printers, HP has replaced foam cushioning with recyclable pulp cushioning (where possible) and replaced plastic bags with reusable bags. In 2010, HP has seen significant reductions in packaging waste, avoiding the use of materials equivalent to more than 300 million 6-ounce Styrofoam cups(11) and enough plastic to cover 1,400 NFL football fields.
In 2010, HP estimates that it used approximately 10.5 million pounds of recycled plastic in its consumer printers, which is equal to the weight of 1,060 African elephants.(12) Using recycled plastic enables energy and fossil fuel savings in comparison to manufacturing with virgin plastic material.
Additionally, many large enterprise printing products now ship in ClearView packaging, which saves up to 147 tons of corrugated fiberboard per year. In place of a corrugated cardboard box and foam packaging, HP uses minimal foam supports and wraps the product in widely recyclable film, reducing the volume and weight of packaging by 70 percent.
Continuing legacy
Thanks to customer involvement, HP has achieved significant progress in its recycling programs and now offers HP Planet Partners return and recycling programs in more than 50 countries and territories around the world.
In 2008, HP announced the industrys first and only “closed loop” ink cartridge recycling process – an engineering breakthrough that enables the use of used Original HP ink cartridges returned through the Planet Partners program and other sources, such as recycled water bottles, in the production of new Original HP ink cartridges. In 2010, using recycled plastic instead of new plastic in Original HP cartridges is reducing fossil fuel use associated with HP cartridge manufacture, transport and recycling by up to 62 percent.(2)
Additionally, HP has expanded the number of papers it offers that contain certified fibers that meet a set of requirements for responsible or sustainable harvesting. Following last years introduction of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified Everyday Photo Paper, HP is expanding certification to its specialty paper portfolio, offering Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)- and FSC-certified brochure and flyer papers as well as presentation papers for use with HP LaserJet or inkjet printers in North America.