Printer Cartridges Should Always Be Recycled

How often do you actually think about printing? Do you click a button, get your document and carry on until the ink is empty and you need to replace it? The convenience allows you to focus on other things that seem more important at the time. But what do you do with the cartridges you’re replacing? Do you put them in the general waste or recycle it?

In 2017, 99.95 million units of hardcopy peripherals, including printers and copiers, were shipped worldwide. That is a lot of cartridges that are destined for landfill if you don’t recycle them properly. In fact, in the UK it’s estimated that 55 million empty or used cartridges take a trip there. To put it into perspective, they would be able to cover the entire Old Trafford football pitch 119 times.

Millions of cartridges are thrown away each year – but they can be recycled. Many have cottoned on to this already – and 30% of the world’s cartridges are recycled, which is great. But we can all do better. Here we take a look at why more people should be thinking about how they dispose of ink cartridges.

1. Environmental impact

2. Less waste

3. Economic benefits

How to recycle your cartridges? Recycling your ink cartridges is really simple.

  • Pop all of your empty cartridges into a box
  • Head over to your favorite app, register and download its freepost label
  • Send them off (be sure to check that your box of cartridges doesn’t weigh more than 750g).