Epson Imaging Devices Becomes First LCD Manufacturer to Eliminate 2-Aminoethanol from Its Japanese Operations

Epson Imaging Devices Becomes First LCD Manufacturer to Eliminate 2-Aminoethanol from Its Japanese Operations

Epson Imaging Devices Corporation announced today that it has eliminated the use of 2-aminoethanol, a chemical substance covered by the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (”PRTR”), from all of its sites in Japan as of July 2007. Epson Imaging Devices is the first manufacturer in the LCD industry to achieve this feat.*1

Epson Imaging Devices currently uses some 200 different chemical substances and manages them all in accordance with both legal regulations and the global push for environmental protection. Nine substances*2 of which Epson Imaging Devices uses more than 100kg per year are categorized as Class I Designated Chemical Substances under Japan’s Law for PRTR and Promotion of Chemical Management, meaning that they may damage human health and the ecosystem. Epson Imaging Devices discloses how much of these substances it uses in its Environmental Report and on its website. In the case of PRTR substances of which it uses more than one ton per year, Epson Imaging Devices also reports this information annually to the relevant government authorities.

Since 2-aminoethanol was the Class I Designated Chemical Substance used most, Epson Imaging Devices has been striving since 2003 toward the ambitious goal of eliminating this substance from its Japanese sites in fiscal 2007 (April 2007 to March 2008) and from its manufacturing subsidiary in China, Suzhou Epson Co., Ltd. (SZE), in fiscal 2008. Epson Imaging Devices has put particular effort into reducing the environmental impact of its Tottori Plant, given its status as the company’s main plant and its influence on overall operations, and 2-aminoethanol was completely eliminated from this plant in January 2007. As for Head Office, which previously used a large amount of 2-aminoethanol, the company has worked toward the same goal and achieved the complete elimination ahead of schedule in July 2007. This means that Epson Imaging Devices accomplished the goal of eliminating 2-aminoethanol from its Japanese plants considerably sooner than anticipated.

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