How Beneficial Is Recycling Ink Cartridges
Ink cartridges here means computer printer ink cartridges, not photocopy machine toner ink cartridges. Many households and offices simply throw away their empty computer printer ink cartridges because of any or a combination of several reasons: they do not know the value of recycling the ink cartridges; sending them to recycling entities is a bother and not worth the effort, or there is no recycling system anywhere near them. This last is being remedied nowadays in various ways.
But for the first consideration, the mere sending of ink cartridges for recycling contributes greatly towards saving money and the environment. For example, over 10 ink cartridges are thrown away per second in the United States alone. You can do the mind-boggling math how many are discarded each year. If you multiply that by any number of countries –even just the ‘developed’ countries only—you can imagine how large landfills they will need just to be away from sight, to disintegrate only after more than a thousand years.
On top of that, more or less 80% energy is saved in remanufacturing plastic compared to making virgin new plastic, and only 50% of the non-renewable fuel oil is used. Thus even when the discarded ink cartridges end up remanufactured, there is considerable savings attained in doing so.
So you see if you recycle your ink cartridges at least you will decrease by a substantial portion the amount of discarded ink cartridges, contributing immensely to a better environment for tomorrow’s generation, which would include your children. It is really easy to do, and you save money as well.
First option, use a refill kit. Refill kits contain inks that are almost identical to the manufacturer’s, so your printer and the print quality will not be affected much. Some ink cartridges can be refilled up to five times without a marked change in printing quality, so you can save some cash by refilling.
Next, you can send them back to the manufacturer. There are printer manufacturers who include mailers so you don’t spend money for postage in sending the ink cartridges back to them. Either they buy the ink cartridges, or give you substantial discounts on your next purchase. Either way, you save your money and help save the environment.
Third, you can send them to third parties who buy used ink cartridges. You can research online to find the recycling locations nearest you and how to contact them, but be sure that their list includes your brand as many do not accept all brands. If you think it will help, you can even start a empty ink cartridge collection project to help your chosen charity, in cooperation with the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts of the nearest school, or some local civic organization.
Finally, you can opt to buy only refurbished or remanufactured ink cartridges. In doing so, you reduce the use of virgin plastic, lessen the volume of waste plastic, help conserve the environment and preserve the planet. And you save money to boot. Now, isn’t that good?
This is a guest post by Ben from Toner Printer Copier, a UK supplier of Samsung printers including the Samsung ml3710nd and Samsung ml3310nd.
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