Canon has announced it will begin using recycled steel material in some printing products.
The recycled electric furnace steel sheets will be used in hardware that will be released in 2025. This will include office multifunction devices (MFDs), home inkjet printers, large-format inkjet printers and commercial printing presses.
Going forward, Canon said it will “gradually increase” the number of products made with recycled steel.
Electric furnace steel sheets are recycled materials produced in an electric furnace from steel scrap that has been collected from used products.
Canon added that CO2 emissions from the production of electric furnace steel sheets are about one-fifth of those from blast furnace steel sheets (steel materials made from iron ore). As such, their contribution to decarbonisation could be significant.
Steel is the second most used material by weight in Canon's printing products, following plastic. Canon has studied the characteristics of electric furnace steel sheets and optimised the processing method so that they could be used in products.
The production of electric furnace steel sheets requires steel has been separated from other materials including plastic and copper.
Canon Ecology Industry, one of Canon’s group companies, finely separates steel scrap from collected used office MFDs (pictured above, right) and sells the refined steel scrap to Tokyo Steel Manufacturing, 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.