Ricoh Develops The World’s First Biomass Toner

Sustainability is crucial to society’s survival. Ricoh believes that a company must take responsibility for all the materials used in its products. Ricoh does this while focusing on two points: minimizing the amount of resources extracted from the natural world, and finding alternatives to resources at risk of depletion. To achieve this, Ricoh is actively converting the materials it uses from non-renewable petroleum resources to reproducible biomass as well as recycling its products. Biomass plastic has already being used in some Ricoh products.

In a recent highlight, Ricoh developed the world’s first biomass toner as a genuine manufacturer’s supply item, and released machines that utilize this toner in the Japanese market. About 80% of conventional toner is petroleum-based resin. The new “for E toner” however, has a biomass content of 25% of the entire mass including the resin.

As a result, the biomass toner requires less petroleum than conventional toner, and contributes to the prevention of petroleum depletion. Being carbon-neutral, the biomass toner works to reduce the net amount of CO2 emitted from the combustion of used toner.

“Global warming and the depletion of petroleum resources drives manufacturers to find alternative solutions. In the course of years, Ricoh has been examining many possibilities to reduce the environmental impact of toner. Analyzing the possibilities of biomass technologies will receive bigger attention in the future in order to protect the environment” – said Krisztina Sótér, Marketing Communications Manager at Ricoh Hungary.

Although “for E toner” is now only sold in the Japanese market, Ricoh will continue accumulating technologies and know-how on the biomass toner, with the aim of preserving the environment."

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