Over the last decade or so, the importance of recycling has not only grown, but has been advocated by government officials and environment enthusiasts alike.  The effects of pollution have started to change the weather and the growth of our Earth.  Animals and nature are depleted, while the ozone has become a cesspool of poisonous gasses and overflowing garbage.  Such a big world, how do individual people make a difference?

A good place to start is simple recycling.  That doesn’t just mean your soda cans or empty water bottles, but virtually anything plastic or glass.  Do you know what the most highly demanded liquid is on the planet?  No, it’s not beer, it is ink.  Computers are a few years away from running the world, and printers are their sidekicks. 

There are some printers, namely Xerox brand, which use solid ink sticks, rather than liquid.  This Phaser ink dissolves inside the printer, leaving no unused parts.  However, almost every other manufacturer uses a liquid ink that comes in cartridges.  These inkjet cartridges can print hundreds of pages, but once empty, usually get tossed in the trash.  Hundreds of millions cartridges lay worthless in landfills that could have been reused or broken down to use for an entirely different product.

If you own a Brother inkjet printer that holds multiple cartridges of Brother ink, or if your office has various HP printers with HP ink and toner, perhaps consider getting a bin to toss empty cartridges in. There are many programs online and in stores that not only take your empty tanks, but give you cash for them and provide shipping supplies as to alleviate you of that cost.

The same standards apply for toner recycling.  If you have empty Okidata C5580 toner cartridges, set them aside and send them in to people who can make them worth something again.  Toner and ink cartridge recycling is a small place to start, but if every person would do it, it could make a huge difference.

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