Benefits of Reuse vs Recycling Cartridges
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misuse of the term 'recycling' in the cartridge industry, so a lot of people get annoyed because they can’t understand why their cartridge can’t be 'recycled'.
Cartridges4Charity collects empty cartridges to be reused as refilled cartridges and to raise funds for our partner charities. This is very different to, and normally better than recycling.
What Reuse Means for Your Cartridges
Reuse generally involves a used item being used again for the same purpose.
For cartridges this involves collecting empties, sorting them and professionally ‘remanufacturing’ them. Remanufacturing is just a technical term for refurbishing a cartridge: cleaning it, checking the electronics, filling it with new ink or toner powder, and then testing it.
What Recycling Means for Your Cartridges
In contrast, recycling involves a used item being broken down into the basic materials that were used to create it, and for those materials to be salvaged and used in making different products.
For example, metals are often melted down and purified to be sold as a commodity, and plastics can be ground down and used in novel products like recycled pens, road surfacing, and suchlike.
Which is Better?
Recycling, though generally better than just landfill, is a much poorer use of resources than reuse. This is because: not all of the product will be recyclable, it takes resources to convert a product to its base materials, and because there will be resources used in making a new product from the recycled materials.
Therefore, in many cases, recycling can be more costly (in terms of resources and environment) than producing new items from scratch.
We raise funds for our charity partners by reusing your cartridges instead of recycling them.
You can send your cartridges to us now, and see if they're eligible for reuse, on our Check Your Cartridge in 60 Seconds tool.