Going green is more than just good for the earth—these days, it can be quite good for business. Even if you don’t get money directly from the action of recycling, the positive PR that comes from it has the ability to open you up to new markets who might have never considered you.
The real question that most people have is how to recycle, not whether to do it. When it comes to your ink cartridges, you may need to learn a bit about how to recycle in order to get it done the right way. Take a look below to learn the process.
Office Supply Stores
Many local office supply stores will take your old cartridges off your hands. If they provide the service, they will likely tell you about it on their website. This is the quickest and easiest way to make this happen, and you can be sure that your ink cartridges will be properly taken care of!
Local Recycling Facilities
If you don’t have an office supply store in your area that takes old ink cartridges, you can normally get rid of them at one of your local recycling facilities. If you don’t have a neighborhood big box store, you can usually find the next best thing from a quick Google search. You may also be able to find a good facility from a search of the materials that you would like to recycle, in this case, ink cartridges.
Refilling Your Cartridges
One of the best ways to recycle old cartridges is to simply refill them. Depending on the scale of your operation, you may need to scale up on your refill kits, but there are definitely options available for all sizes. You may even be able to give someone a job refilling your old cartridges, which is just one of the ways that you can profit from recycling them!
Working with Nonprofits
It’s highly unlikely that you will have none of the options above available to you. However, this may be the case. If so, you can work with a nonprofit organization that has greater reach than a local facility. In most cases, if you can collect a minimum of 20 items, you can send off your empty cartridges to the nonprofit to be recycled. Many of these businesses will even send you a free shipping label so that you can get the job done more expediently.
Recycling ink cartridges is particularly important if you run a business, as you should aim to minimise your environmental footprint. If you’re using industrial grade ink, this website shows a number of eco-friendly solvent inks.
There are always new and inventive ways to recycle products, especially highly reusable products like ink cartridges. Take the best practices above to heart and put a little green on your business. Not only will you be doing Mother Earth a big favor, but you may also be able to glean some profit out of the process. Don’t take no for an answer, and make sure that you recycle consistently. Once you get into the habit of doing so, it becomes incredibly easy and may even turn out to be fun for you!