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Printer toner and ink might not seem like the most interesting topic, but it may surprise the average consumer to know that this could not be any further from the truth. A very strong case can be made for Brother HL-5240 toner and inkjet cartridge recycling, and the facts would almost certainly surprise nearly anyone who has no prior knowledge of how wasteful most people and businesses actually are. Unfortunately, most people and businesses have absolutely no idea the harm that their unintentional wastefulness is causing.

To put this pandemic in perspective, nearly eight cartridges are thrown away every second in the United States of America alone. That staggering statistic means that there is more than one printer cartridge disposed of every year for every two American citizens. A low-ball estimate places the number of cartridges thrown away per year in the United States alone at over two hundred fifty million. Worldwide, this number is closer to a billion. This gross misuse of natural resources and raw materials is taking a significant toll on our planet as well as our pocketbooks. There is simply no reason for this to continue.

Luckily for printer companies, over 1.1 billion of these cartridges are used worldwide every year. Unfortunately for the environment, over seventy percent of these products are thrown away at some point.  An average printer cartridge, such as a Dell 3115cn toner, takes roughly one thousand years to biodegrade, and certain parts can take much, much longer. On the other hand, estimates place the percentage of these products that undergo inkjet or toner recycling projects at twenty to thirty percent. Although not every products is used in a one year period, the vast number of wasted Epson, Brother, and HP inkjet cartridge (just to name a few manufacturers) would fully circle the world if stacked end-to-end. That amounts to over twenty-three thousand eight hundred sixty miles of wasted printer products.

Furthermore, each discarded HP 1020 toner cartridge adds approximately three pounds of garbage to earth’s landfills. These numbers are completely staggering, but it does not end there. It would only take one hundred five of these goods stacked on top of one another to equal the height of the Statue of Liberty. When these metaphors are used, it becomes very evident that this pattern of misuse and destruction of natural resources is detrimental to the earth and therefore ourselves. Recycling is no longer a ideal option; if this is ever to end it is the only option.

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