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Like with inkjet cartridges, you can recycle toner cartridges in a variety of ways. In fact, many of the companies that accept inkjet cartridges also will also accept toner cartridges. However, if recycling is important for inkjet cartridges, it is even more important for toner cartridges. Compared to inkjet cartridges, toner cartridges are much larger, require more resources to manufacture, and weigh a lot more. An average empty toner cartridge weighs as much as three pounds and takes up 0.15 cubic feet of space. Using conservative calculations, about 84.4 million toner cartridges are thrown away each year worldwide, which adds over 250 million pounds and over 12 million cubic feet to the landfills! That is a great deal of useless waste as the cartridges can be recycled in a variety of ways:
- As with inkjet cartridges, you can take your empty toner cartridge to the nearby Staples or Office Depot and get $3.00 coupon to use for future toner cartridge purchases. Staples will also allow you to donate that $3.00 to your local schools to somewhat alleviate their lack of funds. Office Depot will instead give you a coupon that you can use for any purchases, including charity donations of your own.
- Many toner cartridge manufacturers, such as HP, Canon, and IBM will provide you with pre-paid envelopes or boxes to return empty cartridges that will then be remanufactured or recycled in an environmentally-friendly way. You might not get anything for it, but at least the cartridge does not end up in your local landfill and take anywhere from 400 to 1,000 years to decompose. The companies will in most cases provide you with pre-paid shipping labels, so there is no reason not to recycle.
- Companies like Recycling 4 Charity will pay anywhere from $0.20 to $5.10 for an empty cartridge that you can either donate through them to a charity or receive the money directly once you have recycled at least $50.00 worth of cartridges. Like with all other programs, all the shipping charges are covered by the company.
- Chains such as Cartridge World also participate in the growing effort to recycle used cartridges, both inkjet and toner, and help reduce the waste and pollution. They have locations in dozens of countries worldwide and will gladly take your empty cartridges to be recycled in an environmentally-friendly way.
With so many ways to recycle, there really should be no excuse not to recycle. You can even go the extra mile and involve your community in the effort, placing cartridge receptacles at your church, school, or workplace. That can actually be a good way to raise funds for a variety of causes, since, as stated above, many companies will pay to recycle toner cartridges and that’s money you can use for whatever cause you are advocating.
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