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Kyocera statement on recent particle emissions coverage in press

Kyocera laser printers and copiers not criticised in particle emissions study In a recent study conducted by Queensland University of Technology, a number of laser printers were found to emit fine particles into the atmosphere which might be hazardous to the health of office workers. We would like to reassure you that emissions from the Kyocera product tested were found to be well within safe levels.

Kyocera takes all the environmental impacts of its products very seriously, and has conducted emissions tests at the Fraunhofer Wilhelm-Klauditz Institute in Brunswick to standards defined by Germany's Federal Environment Agency and Federal Institute for materials Research and Testing. Kyocera laser printers, multifunctionals and toners are tested as a complete system for emitted particles, ozone and volatile organic compounds in an environmental test chamber with controlled temperature using standardized testing methods.

These new testing methods and criteria were defined in early 2004, revised in 2006 and set down in the new RAL UZ 122 following a two-year research project by Germany's Federal Environment Agency (UBA), working in conjunction with Germany's Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM). These methods place particular emphasis on testing a complete system consisting of printer or MFP together with the original toner and paper to reflect real-life usage.

When performed on Kyocera products all equipment emissions were found to be below the thresholds defined by the UBA and BAM, including particulate emission rates which were below the RAL UZ 122 threshold of 4 mg/h. As a rule, particulate emission rates from Kyocera equipment were between the measurement threshold of 0.3 mg/h and 1 mg/h. These tests were also performed on equipment that had printed several thousand pages, sometimes even over 10,000 pages, in the normal office environment. No elevated particle emissions were detected for these printers either.

In line with its design philosophy of continuously reducing all environmental impacts, Kyocera's latest generation of A4 workgroup lasers are also believed to be the only laser printers which produce no ozone during the printing process. Its long-life drum anddeveloper technology also significantly reduces the number of consumable components required to be replaced during the printer's lifetime. Kyocera toner cassettes typically contain only five components, made from only two types of plastic, whereas a conventional laser printer cartridge contains around sixty five components made from a wide variety of plastics and metals. The amount of waste discarded as a result of consumable replacements is therefore drastically reduced.

More details of the German research can be found here.