It’s estimated that over 300 million empty printer cartridges are dumped in landfills every year. This adds up to a large amount of plastic, left over ink and other parts that go to waste. However, your used printer cartridges don’t need to end up in a landfill. Printer cartridges that aren’t recycled or disposed of correctly end up having a negative effect on the environment, wildlife, and human life. Because of the fact that these cartridges can cause such negative effects, we should all be making an effort to recycle them.
Printer cartridges are made mostly of plastic parts, so they are very easily recycled. The problem is that we live in a society where people throw things away far too easily. With cartridge recycling and remanufacturing it’s possible to reduce the amount of waste we produce, saving both the environment and your money.
Once a cartridge has been used and there is no more ink in it for printing, you may think that it’s reached the end of its usefulness. However, there are a lot more components to a printer cartridge than just the ink. There are also moving parts, the cartridge casing, and in some cases usable bits of metal can be salvaged. These parts are used by cartridge remanufacturers to build generic, recycled cartridges that are compatible with a range of printers available on the market.
What’s also great about remanufactured cartridges, apart from the fact that recycling them reduces environmental impacts and that buying remanufactured cartridges is cheaper, is that you can make money off of your old cartridges by selling them to remanufacturing companies. Cartridge brokers will buy your used original cartridges which would have otherwise ended up in a dump, so it’s possible to save the environment and make a little bit of money back on your printing.
Contact one of the companies below to find out more about printer cartridge collections, recycling and remanufacturing.
Project Plus
Green Office