Approximately 350 million printer cartridges are thrown away each year. Each of these 350 million cartridges can take up to 10 years to decompose.

If everyone saved their printer cartridges, we could build a bridge from earth to the moon (223,000 miles).

Facts like these are in heavy circulation around the printer cartridge industry. We are all very familiar with the battle cry, “Recycle your empty printer cartridges!”

And we should. The plastic and other materials can be used again. The most common notion is that empty printer cartridges will be remanufactured and used in your printer again, but not all cartridges can be recycled. What happens to those. Well, here are two companies that have come up with some pretty good ideas.

Etsy.com is offering ink cartridge lamps and chandeliers, made from empty inkjet cartridges. The empty cartridges are modified to fit the lamp design and then wired for electricity. The creator picked the right style of cartridges, because these things look pretty cool. Prices range from $30 to $150.

Close the Loop has been working with Lexmark to do something more productive with all the empty printer cartridges they collect. Together the two companies have come up with a way to turn empty inkjet cartridges in to pens. Various companies use Clost the Loop’s services to recycle their empty printer cartridges. Close the Loop then turns the cartridges in to various plastic based recycled products. While working with the plastics and metals has been easy, they claim to have always had a problem with the ink remaining with the empty cartridges. This is when the pen idea came to them. They decided to try to use both the ink and the plastic of a cartridge to make a pen. A prototype of the pen has been released. It contains 84% recycled materials. The company want to make one that contains 100% recycled materials.

Huh, I can picture it now. Sitting under my printer cartridge lamp while writing with my printer cartridge pen . . . about printer cartridges.

Let me know what you think of these two ideas. Maybe you’ve got some you’d like to share. Thanks!