In an exclusive interview with PrintIT Reseller, ECS Managing Director Chris Fink and Associate Director Lauren Rabbitte, emphasise the importance of remanufacturing and recycling in support of the circular economy, discuss the company’s commitment to providing environmentally friendly products, and its innovative approach to toner cartridge recycling
PrintIT Reseller (PITR): Let’s begin by hearing a little about the company and what kind of services can a potential partner expect from ECS?
Chris Fink: ECS is the largest remanufacturer in the UK of printer and photocopier products, and probably in Europe now. We’ve always had a core business of remanufacturing and we’ve never gone away from that philosophy. I’ve always said I can never believe why we would buy a finished product halfway across the planet, bring it here, use it and then put it into landfill.
Remanufacturing is definitely the core of what ECS does. We are looking at putting in a distribution centre in Europe, which will provide two-day shipment to places like Ireland, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc. We’ve always had a next-day delivery system in place in the UK. But the infrastructure and the warehouse in Europe will enable us to deliver our products to our customers’ customers within a two-day window.
PITR: So, you’re looking at expanding your UK operations into Europe?
Chris Fink: We’ve always sold products in different parts of the world anyway; we have distributors in other countries. This will assist our distributors; by having a central warehouse, we can deliver our products into different countries within a two-day window, which has always been difficult from the UK.
The world is changing – everyone wants the Amazon model where it’s next- day delivery, it had to evolve from what we’re doing in the UK where we build it, we make it and we put it on the shelves
– so who better to deliver it and that’s where our model was completely changed to direct ship next-day for all of our customers. The same model is now being pushed out for our European friends, and that’s where we see our growth.
PITR: With so many companies trying to impact their bottom line with cost-effective alternatives to OEM products, as well as investing into sustainable services such as recycling, there are now quite a few companies offering solutions to meet these market demands, so what is it that differentiates you from the rest of the market?
Lauren Rabbitte: ECS is all about the customer. We simply wouldn’t be where we are in this present marketplace without those individuals and companies that believe in our products and love the results.
What really differentiates us is that we offer the complete solution. What I mean by that is quite a few years ago, Felicity, Chris and I had a conversation about toner cartridges in general and why no one is reusing them. There was a big hype at the time about plastic bottles and reusing plastic bottles – and now you see more people with a refillable bottle. So, we took that concept and we evolved from that, the idea that we should reuse our toner cartridges.
Our business model is unique because it’s built around our recycling service. So, everything that we bring back through the recycling service, follows one of the three pathways. Within those pathways we have the remanufacturing option – we collect all the OEM cores, we reuse them, clean them out, refill them, seal them, package them, products are tested then it goes out the door. We have been a member of ETIRA for just over ten years now and we have worked alongside them throughout that time period on the process of remanufacturing cartridges and we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of quality assurance of remanufactured cartridges.
Our technical department have a combined experience of just over 125 years. We’re very proud that we’re able to host our research and development team in-house. It’s not somewhere else abroad. It’s in the UK. We have extremely quick and reliable lead times.
I think in today’s industry, there’s a lot of discussion about the environment, the circular economy, planting trees – and that’s great. And as everybody becomes more eco-conscious in this present landscape, that’s fantastic, we should be discussing all these things. But where I do feel disappointed within the industry is we have products that are being created that are single-use compatibles. They’re very often ending up in landfills because we also don’t have enough recycling services in place to deal with the quantity. Our recycling service is probably the largest in the UK and, for this industry. And we’re very proud of the fact that everything we bring back through the recycling, we process correctly.
Chris Fink: Lauren has brought up some key points about what we do as a business. Remanufacturing is the core of our business. We have the largest collection program, which is ECS The Greener Side. That’s been going on for many years now alongside ECS remanufacturing. So, the remanufacturing gets fed by our own Greener Side program, which is where we put the boxes out, we collect them in, we fully audit them, I don’t know of another company in the UK or Europe that does a full audit report on the collection program where it shows what has been brought back through in the box, so there’s every different type of cartridge that comes back, drum unit, fuser unit, waste bottles. We do a full audit on that actual collection from anywhere in the UK.
PITR: So presumably for the dealers that’s a value-add because they’ve got the waste audit trail that they can then show to their customers to demonstrate that they’re acting in a responsible sustainable way.
Chris Fink: Yes, there are a lot more businesses now that have carbon footprint managers, so ESG is one of the bolt-on things that we report on with our ATOM software. I don’t know of another company that can actually provide a product, use it, come back through our collection program, full audit, ISO accredited, then reuse again. It’s unique and that is the full circular loop and how it should be done.
We’ve done it for many years, we are a market leader in it.
PITR: Could you explain a little bit more about what ATOM is and how it works together with your recycling service to the benefit of your partners?
Chris Fink: ATOM software is something we built in-house to bolt onto our recycling service The Greener Side. So as the collections come back, we can generate reports and allow customers to download their own waste transfer notes. We know where the future’s going with traceability
on waste, the Environment Agency is trying to make it more digital. So, from when that cartridge comes out of the machine, it’s going to go into our box, the box would have to have traceability of the waste carriers’ license to the site. ECS is the only facility where we have shredding machinery, cleaning equipment, auditing equipment, everything’s there on site within the UK to show and add the data to our ATOM software, which then the customer can download or see on reports.
It also identifies from that location, what’s around the device, so if you’ve got a machine on lease contract, the sales opportunities are massive. It acts like an MPS that’s not plugged in, so to speak, because the dealer will know what machines are on site on a lease contract and can see all the cartridges that keep coming back – what ATOM does it sorts all this information out for the dealer and gives them the sales opportunities to go after. Everyone says oh green costs money, but green can make money if you look at it from the right angle.
PITR: So, in addition to providing a service that helps customers’ meet their own sustainability goals, and gets the dealer even tighter into a customer’s business, you’re actually helping them identify potential new sales opportunities?
Chris Fink: Yes, and that’s the key thing. If you’re clever with the data that comes back from the location, then you can utilise that. If we’re collecting seven boxes within a short period of time, and they have been filled up by a different type of cartridge and a dealer hasn’t got that machine on contract, that identifies very quickly that the salesperson should act on that.
