Fujitsu Laboratories Limited and Fujitsu Limited have on August 20, 2012 announced the development of the PC industry’s first recycling system which collects used CDs and DVDs at the recycling centres. The plastic is reused in the bodies of the notebook PCs.
The recycled plastic is now being used by Fujitsu for part of the front panel of its LIFEBOOK P772/E notebook PC for the enterprise customers. However, so as to avoid risk of contaminants being mixed in the recycled plastic, the new recycling system also performs quality control based on the chemical substances risk management database which is developed by Fujitsu Laboratories.
This ensures that the notebook PCs and other ICT devices comply with the legal requirements for the chemical components. The new system is also expected to reduce the amount of newly produced plastic used by 10 tons per year while cutting CO2 emissions by approximately 15%.
At the five recycling centers across Japan, Fujitsu collects, sorts, disassembles and recycles personal computers and other products. But reusing the recovered plastic in the new computer units had posed a number of challenges. When different types of plastic are involved, a uniform mixture is not possible to achieve even by melting the plastic with heat. So it is essential to collect only one type of plastic to ensure the desired material properties.
