ENVIRONMENTAL PRINTER CARTRIDGE DISPOSAL
There is real concern today for the environmental impact caused from the dumping by home users and businesses of Inkjet and toner printer cartridges without any thought given to how the toxic residue in the cartridges can effect us.
Unfortunately, printer cartridges are not bio-degradable, and put long term pressures on land-fills etc if not disposed of in the right way.
Today, there are a number of ways to 'do the right thing' by our environment in getting rid of used printer cartridges.
As a home user, you will find many of the retail stores that deal in cartridges will have a collection centre to deposit your used inkjets & toner cartridges. There are also institutions such as the post offices in some countries that also have collection centres.
There are also businesses that for a small fee will collect used cartridges from your business if you put a bin aside for such a purpose.
What happens to the used cartridges is they are taken to centres where the cartridge is broken down for various parts to be shipped out to the original manufacturers for re-use. Otherwise the cartridge parts are converted into parts that are used as input into other types of product.
The cartridges that are new in appearance are taken to factories where they are remanufactured and refilled with toner for further use. This can occur a number of times. The International Imaging Technology Council (IITC)is an association in Texas championing the cause for remanufactured cartridges.
An example of environmental saving given by the IITC is with the Texas Department of Transportation who are purchasing 40,000 remanufactured toner cartridges over the next two years, saving themselves 50% of the purchase price for original cartridges. That's 40,000 cartridges that could have otherwise being place in land fills.
Unfortunately the manufactures of the original cartridges are doing everything they can to prevent remanufactured cartridges from being reusable. This includes implanting smart chips which monitor the toner usage in the cartridge and stop the printer when that chip records that the cartridge is empty.
Consumers are becoming more aware of the importance of protecting the environment, and therefore the health of the world, by not purchasing printers from those brand manufactures who make it difficult to remanufacture their toners.
There is also a move by businesses to move more towards a 'paperless office' environment. With computer storage memory falling in price it is no longer impractical to keep information in large capacity storage disks which could only have been dreamt of in the not too distant past. Also major servers with massive data storage capabilities are now becoming repositories for what was previously printed and put away in storage rooms. that data can easily be downloaded is helping in the reduction of the usage of paper which in turn is minimizing the destruction of our forests, the 'lungs'of the world.
International analytical reporting is showing that the volume of sales of printer cartridges in the world is declining. So from the influences stated above, it is becoming evident that the world is becoming a healthier place in which to live - from a printing usage point of view.
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