You have probably heard that recycling ink cartridges is good for the planet. There is lots of information about how used toner and inkjet cartridges find their way in to domestic landfill or are shipped off to huge landfill sites in China where adults and children sift through the waste to collect the carcinogenic toner power inside. This alone is more than enough reason for recycling your empty printer cartridges, but it seems that many people are still throwing their own cartridges away.
Another reason for recycling our empty printer cartridges is that for every 50 toner cartridges that are recycled, a whole barrel of oil is saved from being used in production of the plastic for the toner casing. This amounts to around $68 at Sept. 2009 prices. Consider also that last year alone, it is estimated that over 100 million empty cartridges were thrown away worldwide. If just 25% of them were toner cartridges then this amounts to 500,000 barrels of oil and a total of 34 million dollars to replace these cartridges. This demand drives oil prices up and has a huge impact on petrol prices which affects directly the amount of money in your pocket. By recycling your empty ink cartridges you can save money in obvious ways such as on the cost of an original cartridge, but you can also save money in other more implicit ways such as on the price of petrol. If that wasn’t enough, you may also be able to get paid for recycling your old printer cartridges depending on the type of machine.
Key Facts
An estimated 100 million printer cartridges were thrown away last year.
If all the ink cartridges thrown away last year were recycled, it would save more than 34 million dollars in oil.
Unrecycled printer cartridges often find their way in to landfill in China and can cause cancer in the local population.