How Do I Dispose of Empty Ink Cartridges?
Recycling your empty ink and toner cartridges is an easy way to help improve the environment and reduce waste. If you’re wondering “Are Empty Ink Cartridges Disposable?”, well not in your household trash can they are not. You need to properly dispose of them or better yet, recycle them. You can even sell empty ink cartridges for cash! Recycling print cartridges reduces air and water pollution associated with landfilling, help save energy, and conserves natural resources. Whether you’re a business, library, school, or homeowner, we can all do our part by recycling printer cartridges. recycle A Look at the Numbers Cartridges are not easily degradable. In fact, it can take 1000 years for a print cartridge to fully decompose in a landfill. Unfortunately, 60 to 80% of all used toner cartridges are put into the trash and end up in a landfill. Properly recycling your used printer cartridges is crucial! Every year, 350 million print cartridges end up in landfills. You can make a difference and help reduce our carbon footprint. By recycling used printer cartridges, we conserve energy and natural resources by reducing the need for raw materials to manufacture new ones. For every 100,000 recycled print cartridges, we can save 9599 kilograms of aluminum; 40 tons of plastic; and 1,000,000 liters of oil. Almost all of the materials that make up a printer cartridge can be either recycled or reused. But even better yet, did you know that empty ink cartridges can be reused? Yes, Recycling Advantage pays cash for empty ink cartridges so that they are refilled and reused.
What Can Be Recycled in An Ink Cartridge?
The following components make up an ink cartridge: • The plastic housing • The print head • The ink tubes• The foam sponge • The ink bag • The chip that keeps track of the ink levels • Cartridges are made of various parts, such as steel, aluminum, clean plastic, contaminated plastic, and ink, and these are all divided up during the recycling process. Steel components are reused to make appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines, whereas aluminum is used to make cans for food and drinks. The processes of recycling used plastic bottles, cans, and plastic bags are used to make many products, including new plastic, such as road surfaces and pens. Residual toner is mixed with asphalt, recycled glass, and plastic to create roads and pavement. By crushing cartridges, you can create a synthetic wood called ‘eWood’, which can be used to make fences and furniture items. However, did you know that empty ink cartridges can also avoid this process by being refilled and reused? That’s the best way to recycle empty ink cartridges is by selling empty ink cartridges to participating companies.
Why Is It Good to Recycle an Empty Ink Cartridge?
The main reason is that, by recycling empty ink cartridges, you will be helping the environment. As the old cartridges are filled with toxic ink, the recycling of the empty cartridges is essential for the environment.
Being a member of the Recycling Advantage Program, you will be helping the environment. In this case, you only need to take a step to separate the ink cartridges that are empty, and you can start to recycle them. We have made it a very simple process to sell your empties. See our How it works page to learn more.
Do Ink Cartridges Really Have a High Environmental Impact?
How harmful are ink cartridges and printer cartridges to the environment? We want to share this information with you.
An article in Preton explains how the manufacture of one laser cartridge requires a gallon of oil, but an inkjet cartridge requires only 2.5 ounces. More than 1.3 billion ink cartridges are manufactured every year, and that amount of oil is significant. Meanwhile, ink and toner cartridges contain toxic volatile organic compounds.
Ink printers use a wide variety of ingredients to create inks that are capable of adhering to a wide variety of substrates. The most important ingredient in this group is probably butyl urea. It prevents paper from curling when printed on. This chemical is one of many which prevents your paper from sticking together. Other chemicals used include cyclohexanone, which helps ink adhere to polymers. Inks also contain many dyes which make the inks easily identifiable. The dyes in this category are sometimes known as reactive dyes.
Even though laser cartridges contain less material, they are no less damaging to the environment. Each laser cartridge uses up to three quarts of oil. For inkjet cartridges, each cartridge requires three ounces of oil.
It’s not good to simply throw old ink cartridges away, as there are many pollutants in them that may pollute the environment. Heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium may be found in used ink cartridges.
Sadly, every year more than 375 million empty ink and toner cartridges are tossed out. That means 11 cartridges are wasted every second and 1 million cartridges are wasted each day. That means that these used cartridges are a huge environmental hazard. In the course of a year, they can take 1,000 years to completely decompose, which means that they take a long time to destroy, especially if they are dumped in a landfill.
Another negative consequence of not properly disposing of ink cartridges is that the carbon black can cause cancer. Ink cartridge manufacturers create huge amounts of carbon emissions. For a new cartridge, it is estimated that 1.4 tons of C02 are released into the atmosphere.
At the same time, more than 80% of cartridges end up in landfills. When burned, the toner and ink cartridges cause significant pollution to the environment.
Should I Recycle My Empty Ink Cartridges?
By recycling used printer cartridges, we conserve energy and natural resources by reducing the need for raw materials to manufacture new ones. For every 100,000 recycled print cartridges, we can save 9599 kilograms of aluminum; 40 tons of plastic; and 1,000,000 liters of oil. Almost all of the materials that make up a printer cartridge can be either recycled or reused.
How to Recycle Empty Ink Cartridges
Recycling Advantage has made the process of recycling empty printer cartridges super simple. Visit our Empty Ink Cartridges for Cash page to learn more.