The news story released by Kodak this week associated with the milestone of recycling 1.5 billion One-Time-Use-Cameras (OTUC) is "huge", in fact 1.5 billion of anything is in itself huge.  The Kodak team is very proud not only of our successful business accomplishment, but also because of the leadership Kodak people have taken over the past 19 years to create and provide a consumer product offering that is environmentally friendly, and a good, or maybe I should say the best, one at that!


WW OTUC Team
Front row: Lynne Shannon, Scott Chase, Mary Pat Callahan
Back row: Kathy Salvati, Rick Clark, Dave Yockel, Keith Wilson, Joe Weiser
(some team members unavailable for photo)
 
Nearly 1 billion of the 1.5 billion OTUC's recycled-to-date by Kodak have been Kodak models, and last years 84% recycle return rate in the U.S. far exceeds all other consumer products.  Additionally, remanufacturing yields of the recycled Kodak OTUC's returned to Kodak's manufacturing facility in Guadalajara, Mexico have continuously improved over the years thanks to our OTUC factory team with nearly everything recycled or reused.



The success of the recycle program owes itself to the Kodak teams' vision that a fully integrated closed loop business and product life cycle was required to be successful.  It started with the product design, material and manufacturing process choices and selections, and supporting business and marketing programs.  There are few other products that offer value at each touch point of a product's life cycle like OTUC's, but Kodak figured it out early enough to make a difference...

• Consumers benefit in that low cost high quality OTUC's are available everywhere for picture taking, delivering high quality photos, that even in today's digital world, offer many opportunities for continued use - "my memory card is full", "my batteries are dead", "I really don't want to take my good camera on the raft trip", etc.
• Retailers benefit in that they make a profit by selling OTUC's, by providing photofinishing services for customer's pictures, AND, by collecting and returning the recycled OTUC's back to Kodak.
• Kodak, as the manufacturer and supplier, benefits by making a profit from the OTUC's it sells through both big and small retail stores worldwide.
• And lastly, the environment benefits because of Kodak's product and global recycle leadership delivering effective collection networks and processes used to recycle and reuse OTUC's and associated materials.

 

I'd like to share a little understanding about what happens behind the scene after consumers purchase and use their OTUC for picture taking...

When a consumer brings their OTUC to a store for photofinishing, the lab technician opens the camera's specially designed hidden break open door and removes the 35mm film cassette.  The film then goes through typical photofinishing processes delivering high quality prints.  The camera, now called a recycled OTUC, is placed into a corrugated recycle case that Kodak supplies at no cost to photofinishers who choose to participate in Kodak's OTUC recycle program.  A preprinted shipping label is provided with each recycle case for shipping the filled case to Kodak's central sorting center in Rochester, N.Y. at Kodak's expense.

Now, as you're likely aware, there are many different brands and types of OTUC's available for consumers to purchase.  Well, you guessed it, the corrugated recycle cases contain this variety of many different brands other than just Kodak which requires a bit of recycle management.  So, upon delivery to the sort center Kodak sorts the recycled OTUC's by manufacturer with all the recycled Kodak OTUC's shipped to our factory in Guadalajara, and all other manufacturers recycled OTUC's returned to the original equipment manufacturers for them to recycle and reuse.  By the way, we have reciprocal exchange arrangements with other OTUC manufacturers.

The recycled Kodak OTUC's have now arrived at the factory and the next phase of recycling begins.  First, the plastic covers are removed and sent to be ground up, and melted to produce new plastic OTUC parts.  The internal camera mechanism is cleaned and tested to Kodak's quality and performance requirements.  If any parts don't meet requirements, they're replaced with new parts at this point.  Next, a new battery and film is installed, new covers are snapped on, a few more quality tests and then packaged in new packages.  After this, its hello world we're back again!

Recently, a conversation about recycling came up during my morning coffee stop at a local (Rochester, N.Y.) bagel shop where "the worlds problems are discussed and solved" (all right, we try).  I explained to my friends the story about Kodak OTUC's, recycling, and reuse, and what we've been doing over the past 19 years and they were amazed - "I never knew that, that's great", "Can we do more of this with other products?", etc.

I'm sure you've heard the comment, "One person's garbage is another person's gold.", or "Cash from trash."  Well, if any person, or company, sets out and designs a business model and product with full life cycle management in mind, selects the materials and manufacturing processes carefully, and rolls out creative marketing and business offers, more success stories like 1.5 billion recycled OTUC's will be talked about in the future. It's win-win for all!



By the way, a few fun facts...

• Laid end-to-end, the 1.5 billion OTUC's recycled since 1990 would stretch 120,000 miles, which... is enough to circle the earth five times, would reach more than halfway to the moon, and, you could drive at 55mph for 89 days to go from end to end!!
• If you wanted to fill empty tractor trailers with 1.5 billion recycled OTUC's, you could throw in one a second, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and you would complete this task on October 19, 2056!! (Starting April 8, 2009).
• If tractor trailer trucks were filled with 1.5 billion recycled OTUC's and stacked, they would stack 50 times taller than the tallest building in the world!! (Taipei 101, "Tallest Building in the World", Taipei, Taiwan)
• Tractor trailer trucks filled with 1.5 billion recycled OTUC's would completely fill the Golden Gate Bridge more than 10 times in all lanes in both directions!!
• You can cover an entire American football field full of tractor trailers stacked 85 layers high filled with 1.5 billion recycled OTUC's.
• 1.5 billion pennies would stack 1,480 miles high!!

Yahoo.com business wire story
Local news story: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
Kodak.com OTUC recycling web page

 

In different ways, people have been trying to predict the future since, well, there have been people.  At first, it was things like "should I plant now, or will a flood come?"  Later, it grew into entire industries, some based on things as simple as which numbers will come up when you roll a pair of dice.

Back in 1968, James R. Berry wrote an article for Mechanix Illustrated giving his idea of what life would be like 40 years later - in November, 2008.  Some of the predictions seem pretty interesting today - like "driving" to a business meeting 300 miles away in a computer-controlled car that travels at 250 mph, or the "intelligence pill" that increases "the production of enzymes controlling production of chemicals known to control learning and memory."  My wife assures me that I could use those.

Actually, it turns out that some of his predictions aren't that far off:  things like home computers, TV shopping, the development of a cashless society, and a time when "the world's information is available to you almost instantaneously."  But while he does mention the use of "TV phones," he largely seems to have missed the dramatic change in imaging that has been driven by digital technology - technology that allows you to have camera with you at almost any time, to take a picture of almost anything.

Think about how we capture and use images today, and how that is different from even just a few years ago.  See something interesting?  Pull out your camera - or your phone -and take a picture.  Then e-mail it to your friends for them to see.  Or post it to the Kodak Gallery.  Or to YouTube.  Or to your own private web site. 

Have it printed on paper, or a coffee mug, or a mousepad.  Use it as the wall paper on your computer.  Put it in a photo album.  Or in a Photo Book.

And that's just for personal imaging.  In commercial applications today, computers routinely use cameras to "see" products on an assembly line, either to guide the manufacturing process or for quality control inspection.  Scientists put digital cameras on microscopes to discover new structures in cells - or on satellites to monitor the weather on other planets.  And security - whether at a bank, an airport, or in your home - is completely different today with the ability to easily monitor multiple locations at the same time. 

Actually, it's possible that Berry would have written his article differently if he wrote it just one year later - because 1969 was the year that Willard Boyle and George Smith first invented CCD image sensor technology at AT&T Bell Labs.  CCDs are the basis for many types of modern imaging, ranging from digital cameras, camcorders, barcode readers, fax machines, and more.  This was the real start of the imaging revolution - providing easy access to image capture directly in a digital form.  Today, CCD and CMOS image sensors - like the ones made by Kodak - are the "eyes" of all kinds of digital cameras, letting people capture and share images anytime, anywhere.

Predicting the future can be a tricky job (just ask a meteorologist), so Berry actually did a pretty impressive job when he peered into his crystal ball back in 1968.  But the world today is different than it was in 1968 - and it will be different again forty years from now.  Any bets on what 2048 will look like? 

As for me, I'm still holding out for Holophotography - but I'm not holding my breath.

6sight is in its third year here in the Monterey, a couple of hours South of San Francisco. This event brings together technologists, business leaders, analysts and journalists who cover technology in the imaging space. You sense camaraderie within this group that speaks of years of shared experience; this is an opportunity for them to think about where the imaging industry is headed.


    
The actual conference began with a few introductory remarks by the head of Future Image, Alexis Gerard and his team. After that, Bill Lloyd, Chief Technical Officer & Senior Vice President of Eastman Kodak Company, delivered a keynote speech, entitled "Press the Button 2.0" in which he described the challenges that would have to be overcome to make digital photography as easy and enjoyable as the "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest" slogan promised more than a century ago. He talked about the need to enhance the capabilities of digital imaging systems, from capture to display; the need for better user interface and some of the opportunities to invent systems that are richer and more intuitive. In conclusion, he said that the industry (starting with Kodak) would need to hide all of the technological complexity that goes into a digital imaging device, so that our users can focus on the fun and creative part of the process. By all accounts, Bill's talk was very well received.



Following Bill's presentation, there was a demo that Gregg Vandivert, Market Planning and Analysis Line Manager at Eastman Kodak Company, did of the KODAK Theatre HD Player. This product enables people to relive their pictures and video on their HD TVs.

Next, a panel discussion focused on "the Future of Cameras." Paul Worthington, of Future Image described some of the areas of improvement, including resolution, ease of use, sensitivity and speed; he asked the panel members to share their impressions. This led to a lively discussion about the improvements that would be the most important in tomorrow's digital cameras. Manufacturers still compete on performance, and there is no sign that it will stop any time soon, but there was a general agreement that ease of use and having a good experience would be the most important improvement going forward. The industry is still struggling to find a way to express quality in terms other than megapixels. There was clearly a sense that there are distinct populations of camera users: some want a lot of control over their devices and others want to forget about the technology altogether. The subject of optics provided a somewhat different perspective in this content because lens designs do not advance at the same pace as image sensors or embedded image processing (Newton's Law, not Moore's Law, for optics). There is still a lot of work to do to bring the performance of the optics in line with the capability of some of today's sensors and to do it in a cost effective way.  At the end, there seemed to be consensus about the real convergence of still and video imaging.

During the break, people flocked to the Kodak stand (which was one of the largest and best attended). There they saw the KODAK Theatre HD Player, our OLED Wireless Frame, the Zi6 Pocket Video Camera and a couple of the impressive new sensors from our sensor group. Many of them probably showed up in the hopes that they would win one of Theatre HD Players that were being raffled off!
 
After that, there was a panel entitled "Printing at the Speed of Ink". Bill Lloyd represented Kodak and was joined by print specialists from both HP and Fujifilm. In this discussion, it was clear that these companies were pursuing different approaches to create value for their customers. It all boiled down to finding the right technology and features for a given application, and the number of applications in the printing space is truly dizzying. One could clearly sense that the Kodak announcement of Stream at drupa had raised a lot of excitement, and the world is waiting to see what the commercial product will look like. What I found especially interesting was a general agreement that quality will become table stakes in a few years and the industry will need to focus on total cost of ownership or ROI to differentiate their product offers.

In the afternoon, there was a panel focusing on the future of cameraphones. This began with a short introduction of an imaging platform for mobile devices from the Swedish company Scalado. After that Tony Henning of Future Image painted a rather bleak picture of cameraphones, noting that the Motorola / Kodak Zn5 was the only example of significant progress on this front in the North American market. Feisal 'Fas' Mosleh represented Kodak in this discussion, much of which was focused on why cameraphones had not made more progress toward becoming a viable replacement for digital still cameras. Fas pointed out that being able to deliver innovations in this space is not enough. They have to deliver real value and at a cost that our customers are willing to support. In short, the cameraphone may replace the DSC for some people, but don't expect point and shoot cameras to go away anytime soon.

As 6Sight continues, stay tuned to read my posts about tomorrow's events and the wrap up.