Reducing waste and promoting reuse and recycling within NTT

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Environmental Management
Efforts to Address Global Warming
Using Resources Effectively
- Reducing waste and promoting reuse and recycling within NTT
- Helping customers to reduce, reuse, and recycle
Environmental Technology Development
Promoting Environmental Communication
Conserving Nature and Local Living Environments

Using Resources Effectively

Reusing and recycling waste from communications equipment installation/removal

The NTT Group owns a variety of communications equipment used to provide telecommunications services, such as telephone poles, switching equipment, and communications cables. Naturally, such equipment needs to be removed and disposed off when it reaches the end of its service life or is replaced during system upgrades. We promote the use and recycling of such removed communications equipment within the Group, and recycle whenever possible, for example recycling discarded concrete blocks as road building material.

For fiscal 2008, across the entire NTT Group, we recycled 175,000 tons of concrete telephone poles, 23,000 tons of switching equipment, and 29,000 tons of communications cables. These activities resulted in a recycling rate of 99.9% for all of our communications equipment, achieving zero emissions^* for the fourth consecutive year.

* Zero emissions
A concept proposed by the United Nations University that calls for reusing all waste materials and by-products from industrial activity as resource inputs for other types of production in order to eliminate waste on a lifecycle basis. The NTT Group considers a recycling rate of 99% or more to satisfy zero emissions conditions.

Amount and percentage of used communications equipment recycled
This is a graph showing the amount and percentage of used communications equipment recycled. 252,000 tons of equipment were recycled in fiscal 2008, an increase of 20,000 tons over the previous year. This represents a recycling rate of 99.9% for all NTT communications equipment, which means zero emissions were achieved for the fourth consecutive year.

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Reducing paper resources required for telephone directories and billing statements

The NTT Group recycles returned telephone directories as paper for new telephone directories. The recycled paper content of new telephone directories has reached 68.2%. Also, as of fiscal 2008, approximately 4.567 million customers subscribe to our Internet billing statement services which allow customers to check their billing statements online, or by e-mail, or mobile terminals, saving approximately 913.2 tons of paper resources annually.

Paper consumption and recycled-paper content of telephone directories
This is a graph showing paper consumption and recycled-paper content of telephone directories over the past five years. Paper consumption for fiscal 2008 was 65,000 tons, which represents a decrease of about 40% from the fiscal 2004 level.

Paper resource reductions from NTT Internet billing statement services
This is a graph showing paper consumption reduction stemming from NTT Internet billing statement services. Over the past five years, subscribers to these services have tripled, and the amount of paper saved has doubled.

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13,600 NTT DOCOMO PHS base stations recovered

With the shutdown of NTT DOCOMO's PHS service in January 2008, NTT LOGISCO has recovered approximately 13,600 Kanto region PHS base stations (as of March 31, 2008).

This is a photograph of a PHS base station recovered after termination of the service. PHS base stations

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