In this digital age, sending a letter seems pretty old fashioned to most. In fact, for people born in the eighties and nineties, to write longhand is a challenge. In the instances when e-mail seems unsuitable, it is simply much easier to compose our letters on computer, print them out and visit the post office to mail them.
A few weeks back, I was doing just that here in Tokyo when I noticed a metre-high white box — inscribed with the names of several well-known Japanese and international printer manufacturers — standing inside the entrance of my local post office. Don’t make the mistake of depositing your letter there. Instead, the next time your printer runs out of ink, take the empty cartridge and drop it into the white box to be recycled by manufacturers.
Believe it or not, every year the Japanese alone consume around 200 million ink cartridges and unfortunately in 2008 only 10% were returned for recycling. The remainder are thrown away and in Tokyo that likely means they are incinerated. A similar story can be found in the UK, where 65 million cartridges are sold each year and the recycling rate is only 15%, with the rest ending up in landfills.
Something had to be done about this terrible waste and the responsibility really resided with the manufacturers.
Cartridges off to Nagano
Two hours by train north-west of central Tokyo is Lake Suwa. The region is known as “The Oriental Switzerland.” Besides the breathtaking nature, the city of Suwa is home to a highly developed precision machinery industry, including one of Japan’s most well-known computer printer manufacturers, Seiko Epson Corporation. Epson employs 10,000 people here, making the company the biggest employer in the Nagano prefecture.
Via: ourworld.unu.edu