Fuji Xerox Australia Welcomes National E-waste Recycling Scheme

Sydney – 5 November 2009 – Fuji Xerox Australia welcomes the Australian Federal Government’s announcement to implement a national product stewardship policy to regulate the disposal of e-waste in Australia.  The new policy will require manufacturers and importers of television and computer equipment into Australia to join government-accredited producer responsibility organisations, which will manage e-waste collection and resource recovery in line with established criteria. The news was announced today at the Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) meeting in Perth.

Fuji Xerox Australia has been a long-time advocate for product stewardship among electronics manufacturers via its partnerships with environmental and industry groups such as the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA).

“Fuji Xerox Australia applauds this national approach to e-waste recovery,” said Nick Kugenthiran, managing director of Fuji Xerox Australia. “For several years, we have been working with environmental and industry groups to encourage the government to regulate e-waste disposal. This new legislation will ensure IT equipment is recovered at end-of-life to preserve finite resources and reduce e-waste to landfill.

“Equally important, the scheme will capture industry ‘free riders’ that have neglected end-of-life product stewardship, something we believe should be the foundation of any sustainable organisation’s product philosophy.”

For more than a decade, Fuji Xerox Australia has taken responsibility for all end-of-life products, either remanufacturing or recycling equipment, parts and toner cartridges to achieve over 99 per cent resource recovery. The company’s award-winning Eco-Manufacturing Centre in Sydney is a total waste management centre that remanufactures up to a quarter-of-a-million returned parts and subassemblies per annum.

“Given our long-standing tradition of recycling and remanufacturing, we look forward to aligning our product stewardship programmes in accordance with the new government policy once implemented,” added Kugenthiran.  “We actively monitor our resource recovery levels to optimise systems and processes, and report outcomes in our annual sustainability report.

“While regulating resource recovery is a welcome step forward, long-term we believe that manufacturers should ultimately strive toward more resource-efficient product design and enabling greater levels of product reuse and remanufacture to ensure the sustainable management of our planet’s finite resources.”

Dexter Dunphy, emeritus professor at the University of Technology Sydney’s School of Management, says Fuji Xerox Australia is a positive role model for product stewardship in light of today’s e-waste announcement.

“By embracing extended producer responsibility and remanufacturing equipment and parts in a manner that supports all three bottom lines of sustainability, Fuji Xerox Australia has led the way in product stewardship and sets a benchmark for other product manufacturers looking to address e-waste management,” said Dunphy.

As part of its long-standing efforts to promote product stewardship, Fuji Xerox Australia has been instrumental in the foundation of the Byteback computer recycling scheme in Victoria, a cross-industry and government collaboration facilitated by the AIIA.

Ian Birks, CEO of AIIA, said “Fuji Xerox Australia’s strong track record in extended producer responsibility makes them a good example for manufacturers developing the infrastructure, systems and processes required to comply with a government-regulated product stewardship policy.”

Product Stewardship at Fuji Xerox Australia

In the 2008/2009 financial year, Fuji Xerox Australia responsibly disposed of 4,052 tonnes of end-of-life equipment collected from Australian customers, of which 1,412 tonnes were processed at its Asia Pacific Recycling Centre in Thailand for 99 per cent resource recovery. In addition, more than 230,000 equipment parts were re-manufactured at the company’s Eco-Manufacturing Centre, equating to a $6 million cost-saving compared to sourcing new parts.

Fuji Xerox Australia’s approach to remanufacturing is a more sophisticated form of resource recovery than simple recycling and is based on design for the environment principles that are applied from the conceptual stages of product development. By adopting this approach, Fuji Xerox have avoided almost 139,000 tonnes of carbon emissions and reduced the requirements for raw materials by 22,600 tonnes between 1996 and 2008.

About Fuji Xerox Australia

Fuji Xerox Australia is one of Australia’s leading document technology and services companies, marketing a wide range of Fuji Xerox and Xerox products, solutions and services.  With knowledge and capabilities to design and implement document solutions for offices, print rooms, commercial printers and publishing environments, Fuji Xerox has expertise in print and software solutions, office supplies and managed services.

The company, its management and staff are driven to create sustainable value for its customers.  We focus on continuous improvement across economic, environmental and social criteria, whilst helping our customers achieve enhanced efficiency, productivity and environmental benefits. For more information, visit www.fujixerox.com.au.

Media contact:

David Van

The De Wintern Group

Tel:  0418 649 474

Email: david@dewintern.com

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