Recycle Empty Inkjet Cartridges - Why And How?

By Author: Kanika Gupta
Total Articles: 20
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Go Green! Recycle Your Empty Inkjet Cartridges! Care for Environment! - these environmental awareness slogans are everywhere. But still, only about 5% of ink cartridges are recycled. Rest find their place in trash cans and landfills. I can only think of one reason for this - maybe people are not aware of why and how to recycle their empty inkjet cartridges. Let us look at both the factors.

WHY? Why should you recycle your empty inkjet cartridges? Here are few reasons:

1) Recycling inkjet cartridges is environment friendly. Recycling helps reduce solid waste, conserves natural resources and energy.
2) Inkjet cartridges are made of plastic and petroleum based products. They may take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Now, this is a long time. With current environment issues, its time we start caring about it.
3) Save your tax money that would otherwise be spent for additional landfill management.
4) Recycled inkjet cartridges are refurbished, refilled and resold. This reduces the cost of inkjet cartridges, since they are sold at low price than the original inkjet cartridges.

HOW? How to ...
... recycle your inkjet cartridges? There are two ways you can recycle your inkjet cartridges:

1) Look for instructions on the cartridge box. Most of the companies now have a recycling program, where they take in used cartridges at no charge. They also offer free postage and packaging materials. Some companies even offer a discount on next cartridge purchase in exchange for used cartridges.
2) Find a recycling location that accepts used inkjet cartridges. Most of them offer free shipping or pickup of used cartridges and may even pay few dollars per cartridge. Each location has a list of printer cartridges that they accept. Be sure to check that list before sending in your empty cartridges. Unfortunately, most of the recycling locations accept only original cartridges (ones that have never been recycled before).

You should also know that most inkjet cartridges can be recycled up to 7 times. The bottom line is - Start recycling your empty inkjet cartridges and save our environment.