Toshiba today announced that it was expanding its e-waste takeback program to include copiers and "imaging consumables," including toner cartridges.

The company's program, which includes a partnership with Close the Loop, has grown rapidly in the past year, with 410 percent more electronic waste recycled in the past year than in 2009.

"After seeing the rapid increase of recycled e-waste in the past year, we know that Toshiba is taking steps in the right direction with our 'Zero Waste to Landfill' recycling program," Tom Walter, a director of marketing and operations for Toshiba America Business Services, said in a statement. "With e-waste growing at record rates, Toshiba wants to make it simple for businesses to recycle imaging consumables, not because we have to, but because it's the right thing to do."

Since 2008, when Toshiba launched its partnership with Close the Loop, the company has recycled more than 90,000 pounds of e-waste, which CTL uses to turn into its 100 percent recycled plastic eLumber material, which has been used instead of wood to make park benches, fences and garden boxes for Habitat for Humanity.

The expanded e-waste project is only the latest of Toshiba's environmental goals stretching back a number of years. Most recently, the company announced it was taking part in an industry initiative to recycle a billion pounds of e-waste per year by 2016.

In 2008, Toshiba partnered with Sharp and Panasonic to launch an electronics recycling company, Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management.

Next year, Toshiba will be due to release a new "Voluntary Environment Plan," setting a new series of goals for reducing its environmental impacts. The company's current VEP, which it expanded and extended back in 2008, set a target of reducing GHGs from its products by 6.3 million tons in FY 2010 and by 7.3 million tons in FY 2012.