Wayne Grieve, manager at TRC, says the collaboration with Enviropaints will help the environment. He says, “At the moment, the TRC processes enough waste toner to fill a thousand one litre milk bottles a month.”
Following a six-month trial, Enviropaints’ Otaki plant produced the first re-created specialised paint incorporating toner. Peter Reid, general manager, Enviropaints, says, “This is an exciting innovation. It wasn’t an easy process to perfect, so it was a matter of coming up with the secret formula using our innovative technology to achieve the right results.”
Part of Croxley Stationery, TRC has more than 14,000 active cartridge collection points throughout New Zealand, which are supported by six collection centres. Based in Auckland, TRC draws on the support of Croxley Stationery for administration, customer services and logistics, operating cartridge collection and recycling schemes on behalf of original equipment manufacturers Ricoh, Canon, Brother, Konica Minolta and Sharp. It achieves a 100 per cent recycling rate, dismantling all used cartridges received and extracts the toner.
A mix of all colours, waste toner appears predominantly grey to the human eye. TRC has developed processes that separate black, cyan, magenta and yellow toner, which it prepares and sends to Enviropaints for further processing. The toner is a byproduct of 50,000 used printer toner cartridges sent every month from TRC’s 14,000 national collection points, and TRC’s focus on finding innovative ways to continue its objective of zero waste to landfill.
Grieve adds that without the intervention of companies such as TRC, commercially viable product which includes waste toner is not readily available and is often sent to landfill, causing harm to the environment. He says, “It has been fantastic to work with Enviropaints, which has the technical expertise and vision to think outside the square and produce quality paints incorporating all kinds of materials which would otherwise go to landfill.”
Reid says the inclusion of waste toner adds another component to the company’s products, re-created from recycled paint, and a variety of recycled oxides, pigments, solvents, resins and emulsions. He says, “We are able to use the various toner colours to their maximum advantage, and have achieved our goal of creating a new-life paint through innovation. This of course has definite cost savings on our raw material, resulting in a sharper price to the end user without affecting the quality.”
The paint has a range of applications including buildings, fencing and covering over graffiti. Reid adds that, as a zero-waste company, Enviropaints only uses modern enviro-friendly chemicals. He concludes, “All of the pallets, wrapping and containers used to transport toner to Otaki is recycled. Nothing goes to landfill.”
