The Importance of Recycling Ink Cartridges

Ink cartridges are used every day whether at home or in the office. However, people do not realise the environmental impact ink cartridges have when they aren’t recycled. It is expected that the plastic used to make ink cartridges takes 1,000 years to decompose. Every year 1.1 billion ink cartridges are used worldwide: Laid end to end all of the cartridges would be 129 times as long as the Great Wall of China.

Did you know that to make a laser ink cartridge it takes 3.5 litres of oil, and to produce an inkjet cartridge it takes 90 ml of oil? That is a lot of oil being used especially when you consider that laser ink cartridges and inkjet cartridges can both be recycled. With every laser ink cartridge put into landfill it adds up to 3 pounds of waste. In the UK over 30 million inkjet cartridges are dumped into landfill. Which is 1800 tonnes equivalent to the weight of 18 blue wales.

Research has shown that a used cartridge can be reused or remanufactured between 3 to 7 times. With each cartridge that is remanufactured, one less goes directly to landfill. Only 20 - 30% of cartridges sold worldwide are remanufactured. In the UK, over 65 million cartridges are bought each year, in which only an estimated 15% are recycled or remanufactured. A recycled ink cartridge can cost up to 65% less than original brand cartridges.

I hope this post has given you food for thought about the reasonings for recycling ink cartridges. For further information on how to get involved in recycling ink cartridges please feel free to visit our site http://www.officegreen.co.uk/