Saturday, January 23, 2010

Why Recycle Toner Cartridges

Toner cartridges are not environmentaly friendly. Some estimate that 13 cartridges are thrown away in the US every second! One years worth of discarded cartridges placed end to end, would cover the distance around the earth three times! This is an unbelievable amount of waste that is being added to our landfills. Every year the US is responsible for consuming more than 500 million inkjets with 80% being discarded into landfills. This amounts to 75,000 tons of trash. That is just inkjets, add to that laser, copier and fax cartridges. With more and more printers being used everyday, this number is only going to go up.

Recycling and remanufacuring toner cartridges helps reduce the impact on the environment. The cartridges are not made of organic materials and take a long period of time to decomposse in the earth. The plastic core takes 1000 years. A portion of the numbers are incinerated sending toxic fumes and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and further adding to global warming. An enormous amount of money is spent each year for landill management.

The average toner cartridge is made of 40% plastic, 40% metal and smaller amounts of rubber, paper, foam and toner. The plastic in the cartridges is a petroleum based product. The average inkjet uses 3.5 ounces of oil to produce and a laser cartridge can take up to a gallon. The energy to produce a new cartridge is several times greater than recycling your old cartridge. You are also saving on water usage. It takes three pounds of resources to make a new inkjet. A survey was done in 2007, which stated that the recycled cartridges prevented about 9,000 tons of greenhouse gases from being released into the atmosphere. In less than one year, recycling cartridges in Europe could save more oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez into the Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989, 11,000,000 gallons!

Some ink in cartridges are toxic too. By placing the cartridge in landfills, some ink leakage occurs and toxic chemicals are leaked into your ground and drinking water. Cartridges are important to keep our offices going but the waste takes a toll on our envirnment and budgets for both corporate or the home user. Purchasing from a remanufacturer not only saves you money, but puts dollars back into the local economy. buying remanufactured not only saves you money, but puts dollars back in the local economy. Buying remanufacured cartridges cost between 30-70% less than the OEM, not to mention the fact that it is costing tax-payers more money by schools, government and businesses by not purchasing remanufactured.

It is important to buy your remanufured cartridges from a reputable company that will guarantee their products. In the 1990's there were many disreputable remanufacurers who were using the "drill and fill" method which created poor quality products. The quality of remanufacured cartridges has improved since we started in 1993. Remanufactured cartridges holds as much ink or more than the original cartridge.

Recycling 100,00 cartridges saves 9,599 kilograms of aluminum, 1 million liters of oil and 30 tons of plastic. You might not think one or two cartridges doesn't make a difference but just think of the time it takes to disintegrate. Every individual should be doing their job and keeping the cartridge out of landfills.

Written by Jackie Berman, Cartridge Renewal systems, 732 845 9497 or 800 459 2626
Jackie@cartridgerenewal.com
Remanufacturing cartridges since 1993
Voter one of the Best by the Asbury park Press 2008, 2009
Follow me at twitter.com/tonerdiva

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