Recycling Ink & Toner Facts

Whether the Earth wants plastic or not, recycling of inkjet cartridges is useful in many different ways. However, before our prospects or clients decide how and where to recycle their toner and inkjet cartridges; we must educate them so that they can determine if their recycling efforts are going to be effective.

Recycling will not work if the loop is not closed; many charitable institutions around the world have initiated ink cartridge recycling programs, which fund hospitals, school activities and other social concerns. This type of funding cuts costs in many ways from tax breaks for charitable donations to lowering the price that we have to pay for the services the funded organizations provide.

In addition, remanufactured compatible inkjet cartridges are usually a fraction of the cost of brand name inkjet refills. Several printer manufacturers maintain recycling programs however; your recycled ink cartridge doesn’t always make it around the loop.

Epson, in cooperation with Funding Factory, recently launched a free recycling program for its customers. Schools and businesses can get points for collecting and remitting empty cartridges to Epson. However, the cartridges are not remanufactured or refilled. They are incinerated. To be fair, mention must be made that the incineration is at an environmentally friendly waste-to-energy plant; however, it’s easy to see that Epson is the big winner in this recycling effort. Their recycling plan takes cartridges out of the hands of remanufacturing plants that can offer less expensive remanufactured compatible cartridges to the consumer.

Hewlett Packard also has a free recycling program and they proudly announce that more than 1.8 million HP inkjet cartridges were recycled in 2003. Unfortunately, for the consumer, plastics and metal from the HP cartridges are also disassembled and made into new products. Other components are “used to generate energy or are disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner.”

The article below is just another example of how HP is more focused on maintaining and increasing its prices and insuring that the around the loop becomes more and more difficult using the term recycling inappropriately.

HP Adds to Customer Convenience, Boosts Efficiency with Recycling Program Expansion PRWeb

November 10, 2008
Original PRWeb article: HP Adds to Customer Convenience, Boosts Efficiency with Recycling Program Expansion - PALO ALTO, Calif. (Business Wire EON) November 10, 2008 -- Core News

HP is expanding the HP Planet Partners print cartridge return and recycling program to now include authorized retail recycling, and is implementing steps to reduce shipping materials and increase transportation efficiency. HP Planet Partners, part of the HP Eco Solutions program, now includes HP authorized retail recycling locations for HP ink cartridge and LaserJet toner cartridge collection, in addition to other recycling options. Staples, the world's largest office products company, is the first to pilot the HP retail recycling program. HP is teaming with Staples to offer additional incentives for recycling leading up to America Recycles Day (Nov. 15), a nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle. To reduce the amount of shipping material required for recycling returns, HP will no longer include return envelopes in HP ink cartridge packaging. HP will still offer customers several free, postage-paid return options at www.hp.com/recycle, including return envelopes, bulk collection boxes and printable labels. HP will continue to offer return labels in HP LaserJet toner cartridge packaging as well as its online and in-store recycling options. HP estimates that if all ink cartridges returned via in-box envelopes in 2008 were instead returned in bulk from authorized retail recycling locations, the amount of shipping materials used would have been reduced by more than 600,000 pounds - enough to fill more than 15 tractor trailers.(1) Transportation efficiency may be improved because twice as many cartridges can be shipped in bulk boxes than those shipped individually. Customers can be confident that all HP ink cartridges and LaserJet toner cartridges returned to HP authorized retail locations are recycled responsibly through HP's state-of-the-art processes and diverted from landfills. HP recently met its goal to recycle more than 250 million HP print cartridges worldwide since the inception of HP Planet Partners in 1991. Print cartridge recycling through HP Planet Partners is available in more than 47 countries, regions and territories. To accommodate greater customer participation in the HP Planet Partners program, HP is currently doubling the size of its North American ink cartridge recycling facility to more than 80,000 square feet to improve efficiency and increase productivity. Last year HP used more than 5 million pounds of recycled plastic - from everyday plastic water bottles to highly technical HP cartridges - to make new HP ink cartridges and is well on its way of doubling that goal in 2008. Quotes

John Solomon, vice president and general manager, North American Consumer Business, Imaging and Printing Group, HP: 'We introduced HP Planet Partners long before 'going green' was a trend, and over time HP has made print cartridge recycling easier and more widely available.' John Solomon, vice president and general manager, North American Consumer Business, Imaging and Printing Group, HP: 'As environmental awareness and customer participation have increased, we're proud to offer customers authorized retail recycling locations as a natural evolution of the program.' Scott Rankin, vice president, Technology Merchandising, Staples Inc.: 'Staples makes it easy for customers to safely and responsibly recycle a wide variety of their used technology, whether it's ink and toner cartridges, or cell phones and larger technology items like laptops and computers.' Scott Rankin, vice president, Technology Merchandising, Staples Inc.: 'Working with HP to offer convenient, everyday recycling is one of the ways Staples makes it easy for our customers to protect the environment; we call it EcoEasy.' Multimedia (links to video)

Canon offers its customers several options for recycling toner cartridges, including a single return option, an up-to-eight multiple return options, and a bulk return option. Whichever you choose, a shipping label can be downloaded directly from their website. Return shipping via UPS is pre-paid by the company. It appears from many recycling and other eco-friendly programs displayed on their website, that Canon is a leader in environmental stewardship, however to date they have no recycling program in place for inkjet cartridges.

Lexmark’s recycling program is 100% free, as are the other printer manufacturer recycling programs. Customers request a kit using an online order form. Lexmark pays the postage both ways. However, there is one major difference between Lexmark’s program and the programs of the other print giants. Lexmark works with Planet Ark and Close the Loop in Australia to ensure every collected cartridge is remanufactured or recycled. In addition, they have similar recycling programs in Latin American and South Africa. In Europe, every purchase of a Lexmark high-volume cartridge comes with a postage-paid recycling bag included. Now that’s closing the circle!