How Does Recycling A Print Cartridge Help The Environment?

Almost everyone is aware that recycling is essential; we’re bombarded with advertising campaigns, websites and - yes - blog posts every day telling us so. Recycling has never been easier either, with councils across the UK providing residents with their own recycling boxes for collection. The days of trawling bags of bottles down to the local recycling bank in a supermarket car park are well and truly over.

However, while so many of us recycle, how many of us actually question how our contribution is helping the environment specifically? In this post, we’re going to give you a bit of an insight into how recycling your ink and toner cartridges plays a vital contribution in reducing carbon emissions and preserving the planet’s resources.

When a print cartridges runs out of ink or toner, many people consider that to be the end of the cartridges life and simply chuck it out. When you think about it, this is a pretty silly approach to take; while there may be no ink in the cartridge, the plastic casing and the actual technology of the cartridge will probably be perfectly serviceable. It’s kind of like getting rid of a car because it’s run out of petrol.

Throwing out an ink cartridge after the ink has been depleted contributes to environmental damage in a number of ways. Directly, it contributes to the still-significant amount of waste being sent to landfill. The plastic used in print cartridges is non-biodegradable, meaning that that it can not be broken down into natural components thus contributing to ground pollution.

As more and more non-biodegradable waste builds up, more space is required to store it in - leading to areas of natural beauty being transformed into eyesore waste disposal facilities - and more waste is being incinerated, the byproduct of which is potentially harmful emissions.

By choosing to recycle your ink cartridges rather than simply chucking them in the bin, you’re helping to avert the expansion of landfills and reduce the harmful ground pollution associated with them.

As we stated earlier, there is a difference between an empty ink cartridge and an ink cartridge that can never be used again. Throwing out a perfectly good cartridge that could be refilled or remanufactured and replacing it with a brand new cartridge is extremely wasteful and damaging to the wider environment as it facilitates increased production of new cartridges.

Along with the obvious carbon emissions associated with any manufacturing process, the process of manufacturing an ink cartridge from scratch also requires significant amounts of essential non-renewable materials. It’s estimated that two litres of oil goes into the manufacture of a single print cartridge!

It’s widely accepted that society is at a tipping point when it comes to global fossil fuel levels, with widespread blackouts predicted within the next few decades. By simply recycling an ink cartridge, you can help preserve these natural resources, giving society more time to develop an efficient and sustainable renewable energy solution.

It can sometimes feel that recycling makes such a small difference that it isn’t worth it. However, that simple choice between disposing of your print cartridges one way or the other does make a difference. If enough people also make the right choice and recycle their cartridges, those small differences mount up to form a world-changing difference. Well worth it then, we’re sure you’ll agree!