As much as we’ve romanticized the possibilities of a “paperless future”, the reality is that the ease of printing off an e-mail or PDF for “reading later” means small offices are blowing through ink and toner faster than ever before. And an unfortunate side-effect of that is the number of empty cartridges that end up in landfills when they could easily be recycled instead.
Here in McHenry County we’ve got a ton of great options for dropping off old cartridges including your local big box store such as Best Buy, Office Depot, and FedEx/Kinkos. You may also find drop off boxes at places like your local community church or school. For example, I’ve seen drop off boxes at McHenry County College for empty laser toner cartridges. Programs will vary, so call ahead first.
But small business owners don’t often have the time to seek out drop off boxes for their spent cartridges and that’s when they should take advantage of the free programs that most printer manufacturers offer.
A great example of a company doing it right, is HP: Every toner cartridge you purchase for your HP laser printer includes – right in the box – a free label to ship the old cartridge back for free via UPS. It really couldn’t be easier. Just slap the label on the box, fill out your return address, and set it out where your UPS driver can find it. And if you have more than one cartridge, the boxes can be securely taped together OR you can put all the cartridges into one, larger, box and put the same label on it for pick up from your office.
Recycling HP inkjet cartridges is also easy, but it takes an extra step of visiting HP’s site to get the packaging to return the cartridges.
And HP is just one example. Most other major manufacturers from Brother to Xerox also offer recycling programs – some completely free, and some require you to pay postage – but in every case, you’ll have a place to send your empties to help keep them from going into the local landfills. The one notable, and unfortunate, exception appears to be Kodak. All I can find on their site is a referral to the local big box store for recycling.
Click the links below to get more information on recycling ink and toner for your model of printer:
For most businesses, keeping a small box in the corner to dump used cartridges until they’re ready to be shipped off is no different than keeping a blue recycle bin next to the waste can. It’s easy and, more importantly, the little bit of extra effort it takes can help save resources in the community we’re all living in.