Environmental Conservation
Controlled Chemicals
Use of Chemicals
Roland DG
uses ink to inspect large inkjet printers during its in-house manufacturing
process. This ink contains controlled chemicals as designated in the Pollutant
Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) Law, although in small amounts. The PRTR
Law took effect in Japan in April 2000, and we have since annually checked the
amounts of the applicable controlled chemicals used in our ink. Up to fiscal
2011, we had not confirmed any of such chemicals in an amount high enough to
require us to report its use.
Moreover, in the development of ink we are making a conscious effort to cut
down on the use of chemicals that must be controlled as required by the PRTR
Law or other law/regulation.
Roland
DG uses cutting oil in small amounts, in addition to ink. We use cutting oil
under strict control and have implemented a set of safety measures such as
an emergency procedure manual developed in order to deal with an oil leakage
emergency. We've also provided training on how to operate the oil-leak
prevention system.
*PRTRs (Pollutant Release and Transfer Register):
A program for surveying the extent that chemical substances threatening human health or pollution of the
environment are being released into the air, water, or soil, or how much of it is being transported outside of
the work facility as waste, and then reporting the results to the government.
Waste
Reduction
Promotion
of Recycling via Separation, Disassembly and Sorting
With the
objective of achieving a waste recycling rate of at least 99.0% (excluding
cafeteria food waste and human waste), we promoted our recycling efforts since
fiscal 2005 by setting the “zero waste*” goal and making sure that all waste is
separated, disassembled and sorted.
Consequently, in just two years we were able to achieve the recycling rate of
99.3% at the end of March 2007. We are, of course, still continuing our zero
waste program. Unfortunately, we could not reach our zero waste goal for fiscal
2009, but we once again achieved the goal in fiscal 2010 and 2011, recording the
recycling rates of 99.6% and 99.7% in the respective fiscal years.
We will
continue to implement our zero waste program in an effort to reduce
environmental burden.
*Zero waste:
A concept aimed at creating a resource recycling society
by building a system of
cooperation among different industries to allow
the waste produced by a given
industry to be used by another industry
as raw materials, thereby producing zero
waste.
Reduction of Environmental Burden from Physical Distribution of Goods
Reduction
of Environmental Burden from Shipping Products to Overseas Locations
Nearly 90% of Roland DG’s sales are from overseas. We crate our products
in freight containers and ship them by sea to our overseas joint ventures and
distributors.
Given such circumstances, we came to conclusions that we would be able to help
reduce the environmental burden by paying attention to the environmental impact
of shipping our products to overseas locations. In 2008 we launched an effort to
increase load efficiency in container transport for reduced environmental
impact.
Specifically, we replaced transport containers with "hi-cube" containers and
change the sizes of packing/packaging materials in order to increase the cargo
load factor.
In fiscal 2009 we began to involve R&D designers in work on packing/packaging
specifications from the stage of new product development. Data is currently
being collected to promote the standardization of the relevant specifications.
Our Development Department and the departments in charge of logistics will
continue to cooperate and coordinate for increased cargo load factor as part of
the effort to reduce the environmental burden.
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