Frac.ws

Each year the United States alone disposes roughly 900 million pounds of toner cartridges into landfills across the country, and each one of those cartridges can take anywhere from 400 to 1,000 years to break down. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that those numbers are bad news, but the picture looks even worse when you realize that 97% of that waste could be reused through toner cartridge recycling. In other words, we’re polluting the planet with perfectly good cartridges.

The simple fact that recycling those old toner cartridges helps reduce our impact on the environment should be enough reason to recycle for most people, but the truth is that it isn’t. What does tend to turn heads, however, is finding out that there is money in reusing those old cartridges. There are tons of companies that will pay you to return used toner cartridges to them. The price rate varies based on condition and manufacturer, but it doesn’t take much to start running to various offices in your neighborhood and encourage them to give you their old cartridges instead of throwing them away.

The money behind toner recycling is evidence of the last strong argument in favor or reusing them, specifically that the recycling industry creates jobs and helps to stimulate the economy. The U.S. has been going through a period of economic upheaval since 2008, and every new job makes a difference. How many new jobs could be created by recycling all of those hundreds of millions of cartridges that get thrown away?

Next time your office printer needs to have its toner replaced remember what you’ve learned about the value of toner cartridge recycling and don’t let the empty cartridge get thrown away! There’s good money and sound policy in reusing them for those who are clever enough to make use of the opportunity.