Inkost explain how refilling ink cartridges can have a vast benefit on the environment and your school's budget.

When the ink runs dry in your cartridge, think before throwing it away.
Schools and colleges use tremendous amounts of printing supplies every day, many unaware that cartridges and toners can be recycled or remanufactured:

• Cartridges can be disassembled by remanufacturers.
• Cleaned and any necessary replacement parts added.
• High quality ink is then used to refill them.

1,000 Years to Decompose
Both manufacturers and remanufacturers take their environmental responsibilities seriously, vying with each other to obtain empty cartridges to prevent them ending up in landfill sites. However, despite this, the majority of cartridges still end up in landfills, some never having been refilled.

Through remanufacturing, overall demand for new cartridges is currently reduced by around 20%

• Around half of Europe's laser cartridge remanufacturing waste is recycled.
• Just 30% of inkjet cartridge remanufacturing waste is recycled.
• Over 30 million inkjet cartridges dumped in landfills each year in the UK alone.

With the average toner cartridge weighing up to 1.5kg, the total weight of cartridges thrown away each year is equivalent to over 112,000 VW Beetles. As many cartridge parts are non bio-degradable, they will take around 1,000 years to decompose in landfill sites. It's estimated that landfill sites worldwide contain 'buried treasure' worth more than £100 million in raw materials from discarded printer cartridges.

300,000 Barrels of Oil

• The plastic in each toner cartridge takes over 3 litres of oil to produce.
• Each new inkjet cartridge takes around 70 grams (2.5oz) of oil.
• For each laser cartridge that is returned for remanufacturing, around 1 1/2 litres of oil is conserved.

Worldwide, remanufacturing rather than producing new cartridges would reduce the demand on oil by 300,000 barrels, saving 17,000 tons of aluminium and 10,000,000 tons of timber.

Charities
Many charities such as ActionAid collect old cartridges, providing freepost envelopes to send the cartridge. Charities sell the cartridges to remanufacturers and the profits help support their valuable work. In the case of ActionAid, just one laser cartridge can provide education for a disabled child in Bangladesh for a year, while 10 ink jet cartridges can provide learning materials for 25 children in Ethiopia.

Save Money
And don't forget the money you'll be saving if you buy refilled cartridges - most are 40-60% cheaper than originals. Many even last longer as they have more toner than the original ones. So why don't you make sure you do your bit for the environment - refill or recycle your cartridges - just don't dump them.

For more information on Inkost call 01626 333485 or visit our website