Canon will begin using recycled steel material (electric furnace steel sheets) in some printing products, including office multifunction devices, home inkjet printers, large-format inkjet printers and commercial printing presses, that will be released in 2025. Going forward, the company will gradually increase the number of products utilising recycled steel.
Steel is the second most used material by weight in Canon’s printing products, following plastic. The company has studied the characteristics of electric furnace steel sheets (recycled materials produced in an electric furnace from steel scrap that has been collected from used products) and optimised the processing method so that they could be used in products. CO2 emissions from the production of electric furnace steel sheets are about one-fifth of those from blast furnace steel sheets – common steel materials made from iron ore – and its use reduces the input of new resources and increases the resource recycling rate.
Currently, Canon Ecology Industry Co., Ltd., one of Canon’s group companies, finely separates steel scrap from collected used office MFDs and sells the refined steel scrap to Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Steel), an electric furnace steelmaker. The total amount of collected steel scrap provided to Tokyo Steel from April 2020 to March 2024 was more than 5,000 tons.
Canon will supply steel scrap to Tokyo Steel, and in turn use the electric furnace steel sheets produced by Tokyo Steel to develop, design, and manufacture more sustainable products thereby promoting the recycling and effective use of limited resources. The company has set targets of 20% for 2025 and 50% for 2030, after recording a value of around 16% in fiscal 2022.
