![[Special Feature] Toward a Closed Loop Society:The NTT Group's Commitment to Reuse and Recycling](./img/h1Environment02.gif)
If we do not make effective use of the earth's precious limited resources, we will not be able to build a bright future for the human race. It will also be impossible for companies to achieve sustainable growth.
We at the NTT Group have thus long been focused on environmental issues, and we remain committed to a wide range of efforts to build systems and frameworks for the effective use of resources. In the next few pages, we showcase a few of these activities: reuse and recycling of telecommunications equipment, 100% recycling of mobile phones, closed-loop recycling of telephone directories, and total recycling of paper resources via MPM.
"Zero Emissions" Achieved in Reuse and Recycling of Telecommunications Equipment
NTT East, NTT West, NTT Communications, and NTT DoCoMo have a wide range of communications equipment in order to provide telecommunications services. As we upgrade our equipment due to end of equipment lifetime, offering new services, and the like, some of our existing equipment is dismantled and removed from services. After equipment is removed from services, we actively reuse as much of it as possible within the NTT Group, and recycle as much of the remainder as possible.
One example is communications cables. We remove and palletize the sheathing of the cables, and reuse it to make new cable sheathing, and do other things to reuse communications cables at the material level. Through these and other efforts, in fiscal 2004 we achieved a 99.2% recycling rate for dismantled communications equipment, for the first time achieving "zero emissions" in this field.
100% Recycling of Mobile Phones
NTT DoCoMo collects used mobile phone bodies, batteries, and other items at its DoCoMo shops, and recycles them. We use a unique tool called a "mobile phone punch" on collected mobile phones to protect the personal information they contain, crushing them in the customer's presence. We then finely separate the bodies, batteries, and other items into their various materials.
Through the cooperation of disposal companies and appropriate handling, we are able to recycle 100% of our mobile phones. For example, we use the copper, silver, and other metals we collect through separation and processing as recycled resources, while the slag left over during the manufacturing process is used as a material in concrete and cement.
Closed-loop Telephone Directory Recycling
NTT East and NTT West publish about 120 million telephone directories every year. NTT DIRECTORY SERVICES, which makes our telephone directories under contract, created a closed-loop recycling system that makes new telephone directories out of old ones, in order to reduce the amount of paper resources (virgin pulp) used in telephone directories.
We strive to collect old telephone directories when the new ones are delivered. If the customer is not at home, we leave a note stating that we will come again for the directory, and stating the date we will be back. We also take other steps to increase our collection rates, including making pick-ups at our customers' request.
Total Recycling of Paper Resources through MPM
NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories has developed a new material called micro porous material (MPM) that has the ability to improve water quality and absorb toxic gasses using incinerated ash of waste materials (paper-plant sludge), which contains clay, etc. produced in the used-paper recycling process.
MPM is mainly made from clay. Thus, after it has been used to purify water, it can be used as nutritive soil, enabling the total recycling of paper resources. A number of verification experiments have already been conducted jointly with local governments, in which MPM was used to purify the water of rivers and lakes. Efforts are currently under way to gain wider use of this material.
