Printer recycling is a great way to help out the planet, and others. Rather than tossing it in the trash to rot away in a landfill, leeching nasty chemicals into the ground, you can do something positive with it. When a printer is recycled it is broken down into individual pieces and re-purposed as something else, refurbished, or taken to a recycling facility. Ink cartridges also face the same fate, but there is also a way to save money with these.
In this post I want to show you how to recycle printers, and something else you can do that is even better than recycling.
Printer Recycling 101
There are a couple of ways that a printer can be recycled. In most cases, the printer is sent back to the manufacturer and they will reuse the working parts. This is great, but you will usually have to pay them to take it back! That doesn’t make any sense!! For example, Epson charges $10 for each item that you send them. Highway robbery, I say!
A smarter way to do it is to find an e-cycling center in your area. These places make recycling old printers a breeze, no questions asked, without charging you a dime. Most major cities have multiple places like this, and some will even come to you to pick your stuff up. These companies will usually refurbish and sell the stuff that you give them, but it’s now out of your house, and away from the landfill.
Recycling ink cartridges is a bit different. If you send it back to printer company, they are going to refill it, package it, and sell it right back to you! Instead, find a store in your town that will take your old cartridges and replace them with ones that they filled up. You can get ink cartridges for as much as 75% off of what they cost retail by doing this. Cartridge World is the biggest company that offers ink cartridge refill, but there are others all around the country.
What Else Can You Do?
The coolest thing you can do to recycle old printers (assuming it still works) is donated it to someone that will actually use it. That might be your little sister, grandma, local school, senior center, or library. Reusing stuff is much better for the environment than sending it to a recycling center for processing. If you really want to be a hero, send it to them with ink in it and hook it up for them. It’s a really good feeling when you know that you’ve helped a person and the planet at the same time!
Printer recycling is a no-brainer, but figuring out which way to do it can be tough. See if you can find someone to donate it to first, and if that doesn’t pan out, find a local electronics recycling center to drop it off at.
