Recycled Printer Cartridges
It’s what you do next that matters…
When your ink and toner cartridges are empty, make sure you think before throwing them away...
Businesses use tremendous amounts of printing supplies every day, many unaware that cartridges and toners can be recycled or remanufactured - a process by which the cartridge is reused by being refilled, giving it a second lease of life.
Cartridges are disassembled by remanufacturers, cleaned and any necessary replacement parts added. High quality ink and toner is used with only a very small minority ever noticing any difference in the quality of the printing.
1,000 years to decompose
Both original manufacturers and remanufacturers are taking their environmental responsibilities seriously and vying with each other to obtain empty cartridges in order to prevent them ending up in landfill sites or from being incinerated. However, despite their combined efforts, the majority of cartridges sold do still end up in landfill, some never having been refilled. Just 30 per cent of inkjet cartridge remanufacturing waste is recycled or managed in some way with more than 30 million inkjet cartridges dumped in landfills each year in the UK alone, however in Europe, around half of the laser cartridge manufacturing waste is recycled. Through remanufacturing, overall demand for new cartridges is currently reduced by around 20 per cent.
With the average toner cartridge weighing up to 1.5kg, the total weight of cartridges thrown away each year is equivalent to more than 112,000 VW Beetles and because many of the parts used in cartridges are non bio-degradable, they will take around 1,000 years to decompose in landfill sites. It’s estimated that landfill sites worldwide contain ‘buried treasure’ worth more than £100 million in raw materials from discarded printer cartridges.
300,000 barrels of oil
While some cartridges may still get dumped, this amount can be drastically cut down - for every cartridge that is refilled, one less enters the waste stream, saving it from draining the planet’s natural resources.
The plastic alone in each toner cartridge takes more than three litres of oil to produce and each new inkjet cartridge around 70 grams (2.5oz) of oil. For each laser cartridge that is returned for remanufacturing, around one and a half litres of oil is conserved. Worldwide, remanufacturing cartridges instead of producing new ones would reduce the demand of oil by 300,000 barrels and save 17,000 tons of aluminum as well as 10,000,000 tons of timber.
Charities
Many charities such as ActionAid, actively collect old cartridges, providing freepost envelopes for you to send the cartridge, using them to raise valuable funds.
Charities sell the cartridges to remanufacturers and the profits help support their valuable work. In the case of ActionAid, just one laser cartridge can provide education for a disabled child in Bangladash for a year while 10 ink jet cartridges can provide learning materials for 25 children in Ethiopia.
Money
And don’t forget the money you’ll be saving if you buy refilled cartridges – most are 40 – 60 per cent cheaper than original equipment manufacturers cartridges with comparable quality and reliability – many even last longer as they have more toner in them than the original ones.
So why don’t you make sure you do your bit for the environment – and recycle your cartridges – just don’t dump them.