Ink Makers Article

What to do with All Those Ink Cartridges?

More than ever before, people are getting into doing their part to help the environment. This comes in many forms, such as driving more energy efficient vehicles and being mindful of how much power they are using. One of the biggest factors when it comes to the jump in environmentally friendly mindsets is recycling. Most people nowadays do at least a little bit of recycling, even if it is just taking in beverage cans to the local grocery store or dropping stockpiled newspapers into a recycling bin.

So you are a faithful recycler, separating your metals, glass, plastics, and paper everytime you throw something away. Perhaps you even compost your food waste. All of this is well and good, but when your printer ink cartridge runs out of ink, you just throw it in the regular trash bin. Maybe you just did not know, but these can be recycled as well.

A quick Google search for "ink cartridge recycling" yields over 50,000 results, so there are obviously places that help with recycling these types of material. Evidently, this also includes discarded cell phones, since they are made with similar plastics as ink cartridges. Better yet, there are some places that will even pay you cash for your old, empty ink cartridges!

You may be asking yourself what the point is in bothering to recycle something as small as an old ink cartridge or cell phone. Well, the fact of the matter is that a little goes a long way when it comes to these items. Firstly, the plastics and other components used to build an ink cartridge or cell phone take literally hundreds of years to decompose naturally. It is a very hard plastic that is resistant to higher heats and the elements than a shampoo bottle, for example.

The other issue is volume. Think about how many millions of people all over the world now own at least one cell phone and one printer that has ink cartridges. And when was the last time you went into a business that did not have a printer? Add all that to every educational institution that has a printer containing ink cartridges in each classroom. Then consider that both ink cartridges, especially when used frequently, need to be replaced often, meaning that there are even more ink cartridges needing to be thrown away.

There are pretty obvious trends showing that technology is not simply a fad that will go away in a few years. No, as our society progresses forward, so will technology, and the need for printing and cell phone use will continue to become more and more important. If we are planning to continue our trend of becoming more environmentally aware and friendly, it only makes sense that we would apply that to our technology as well.

If you would like more information about recycling ink cartridges or cell phones, you can do a search on the internet or contact your local waste management company to see if your community has a program for this type of recycling.