Why you should recycle your old toner cartridges

In today’s green, eco-friendly society, recycling is gaining popularity. We recycle soda cans, bottles, paper, batteries and even cell phones. An item often overlooked is the toner cartridge in our home and office printers. The question then becomes “why should we recycle our toner cartridges?”  If you’re on the fence with regards to taking the time to recycle your toner cartridges, here are the top 2 reasons to do so!

Save space in the landfill and save the environment
We tend to not give much consideration to where our trash ends up once it leaves the curb. With just over a dozen toner cartridges being thrown away every second there are millions upon millions of laser toner and ink cartridges that find a home in US landfills each year. The plastic from these cartridges take 1000 years to decompose. In addition, the left over ink inside of your cartridge can seep out, polluting the environment. The ink is often toxic to plant and animal life in the area. By purchasing recycled cartridges we are conserving the natural resources used to make new cartridges as well as the energy used to create them.

It’s Easy
We strongly encourage you to drop empty ink and toner cartridges off at the major office supply stores. The major office supply stores offer cartridge recycle bins. Simply save your cartridges and take them to the store with you the next time you head out.

Approximately 70% of toner cartridges used in homes and businesses are thrown away rather than recycled. If all of these cartridges were laid end-to-end, they would circle the planet three times over. Knowing these facts and how easy it is to recycle toner cartridges, the question quickly changes to ‘why shouldn’t I recycle my used cartridges?’