‘Not enough’ printer cartridges being recycled

As far as environmentally-friendliness is concerned, those who use printer cartridges are lagging behind, a new report has found.

InfoTrends discovered that the printer supplies industry is not responding sufficiently to the threat of climate change by doing its part for the environment with less than half of all printer cartridges, such as ink-jet cartridges, being used again or recycled.

Original printer cartridges manufacturers are presently working with re-manufacturers to collect used items, according to the report 2007 Supplies Recycling: US and Europe.

It is third parties or re-manufacturers who are gathering the majority of ink-jet cartridges, with 700 per cent more being collected by these firms than the original manufacturer.

The report states: "Through re-manufacturing, 3rd party supplies companies are able, on average, to reduce overall demand for new cartridges by about 20 percent."

Manufacturers of ink-jet printers and ink-jet cartridges such as Xerox and Lexmark are now appreciating the importance of recycling their products, the report suggested, singling them out

Economics of the situation were found to play a part in a firm’s decision to recycle or not with the report claiming that "80 percent of re-manufactured toner cartridges and 86 percent of re-manufactured inkjet cartridges are thrown away’ because it is uneconomic to refill them again."

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