Amount of final disposal waste for fiscal 2005 reduced to 40,000 tons, surpassing the 2010 target of 72,000 tons for second consecutive year99.5% of used communications equipment recycled to achieve second consecutive year of zero emissionsWaste management measures
Having committed itself to reducing the final amount of waste
to 15% or less of its 1990 level by 2010, the NTT Group is now
promoting 3R (reduce, reuse, and recycle) programs in the areas
of used communications equipment, construction waste,
civil engineering works waste, and office waste.
As a result of these proactive programs, the final amount of
waste in fiscal 2005 was just 40,000 tons, marking the second
year in a row that we have surpassed our fiscal 2010 target of
72,000 tons ahead of schedule.
We are committed to continuing to promote these and other
3R programs as part of our efforts to achieve a sustainable society.
Initiatives
Reuse and recycling of used communications equipment
As providers of information and communications services, NTT
Group companies own and maintain a great variety of communications
equipment. With the aging of equipment and introduction
of new services, we are forced to retire or replace about 200,000 tons of switching equipment, telephone poles,
communications cables and other communications equipment
each year. This used equipment is reused as much as possible
within the NTT Group, and almost all items that cannot be
reused are recycled. In fiscal 2005, 99.5% of such equipment
was recycled, helping NTT achieve "zero emissions" for the
second year in a row.
Collection and recycling of used phones and accessories, etc.
The NTT Group actively collects and recycles phones, faxes
and other consumer communications equipment no longer
needed by our customers. In fiscal 2005 alone, NTT Group
companies collected a total of 4.22 million phones and fax machines,
4 million batteries, and 1.97 million battery chargers.
NTT EAST and NTT WEST both have programs to recover
and recycle phone/fax equipment, small secondary batteries
such as nickel-cadmium and lithium-ion batteries used in cordless
handsets, and toner cartridges from plain paper fax machines.
NTT DoCoMo too recycles 100% of the handsets, batteries,
and chargers that it collects.
Developing a centralized system to manage environmental data of buildings
NTT FACILITIES has developed a system to centrally manage environmental performance data for approximately 35,000 of the buildings owned by NTT Group companies nationwide, including amount of industrial waste generated by engineering works, the status of replacement of ozone layer-destroying halon-based fire extinguishing equipment with new fire extinguishing equipment, and amount of collected ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons. This system has been in use since 2005.
This system not only eliminates the bother of complex data input and calculation, but also enables real-time monitoring of current status. Environmental data can consequently be disclosed promptly, and the system can also quickly provide environmental information required for building management and design tasks.
Recycling of lease-expired PCs and other equipment
In addition to its other businesses, NTT FINANCE is involved in the leasing of various items including computers and communications equipment, and seeks to contribute to the creation of a sustainable society by recycling computers returned after their leases expire.
When lease contracts expire, NTT FINANCE evaluates the returned equipment to decide whether it can be reused as it is, or should be treated otherwise. Any computers assessed to have value as second-hand goods are processed to erase all data and enable their reuse.
Those unsuitable for reuse are handed to processing firms which dismantle them into parts that are then recycled as resources. Parts that cannot be recycled are separated by hand and then disposed of in landfills.
NTT FINANCE's reuse rate has reached 50%, and the recycling rate of processing firms 95% and over, meaning that most of the goods they process are reused in some form or other.
(right) Computers being dismantled at a processing facility
