KONICA MINOLTA

About Konica Minolta

Giving Shape to Ideas

Environmental Activities

About Konica Minolta

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Supporting a Recycling-Oriented Society

Efforts to Save Resources

Product Design to Save Resources

Endeavoring to preserve resources by promoting product development that has a light environmental impact

Making products lighter and more compact reduces the amount of raw materials used and saves energy during manufacturing. It also contributes significantly to reducing environmental impacts when products are disposed.
By further developing its core technologies, Konica Minolta is working aggressively to develop new products that are more compact and lightweight with improved performance, employing new methods that place fewer burdens on the environment. In addition, the company is pursuing product design that considers recycling from the standpoint of effective resource utilization.

Case 1: Achieving Thinner TAC Films for LCD Polarizers

One of the indispensable components of the liquid crystal displays used in mobile phones, PC monitors, LCD TVs, and large screens is TAC* film, which protects polarizers.
Konica Minolta Opto, Inc., got a head start in the development of TAC films for liquid crystal polarizers using technology acquired over the years in the development and production of photographic film. While meeting the quality requirements of liquid crystal display applications such as high flatness and UV absorption, the company has achieved production of a film twice as thin as conventional films, with a thickness of only 40 μm, thereby reducing the use of material resources by half. In the expanding market for liquid crystal displays, use of thin TAC film is increasing every year, contributing to the conservation of resources.

*
TAC: Abbreviation of the substance triacetylcellulose

Case 2: Inkjet Textile Printer


Textile printer Nassenger VII

There are two ways of printing patterns and images on textiles: screen printing, where a screen is created for each color and the textile is printed with each color in succession, and inkjet printing, where ink is directly sprayed on the textile. Konica Minolta IJ Technologies, Inc. developed and sells an inkjet textile printer that can directly print designs created on a computer.
Inkjet printing uses only the necessary amount of ink to print on specific areas of textiles. As there is no need to create or wash screens, the amount of waste and resources used is drastically reduced. Furthermore, the production process is simple and allows for rapid additional production in response to demand, which in turn allows customers to reduce the amount of inventory. The printer's low-environmental-impact and high-mix, small-lot production features have been well received in the market and demand for the system has increased rapidly, especially in the apparel industry of Europe and Asia.

Comparison of Screen and Inkjet Printing Environmental Impact

Case 3: Digital X-ray Imaging Device


REGIUS MODEL 110 X-ray digitizer

The REGIUS MODEL 110 X-ray digitizer for the health clinic market features a compact design 71% lighter than the previous model.


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