You want to recycle your printer cartridges? Use the links below to get more information on recycling your inkjet or laser toner printer cartridges.

HP - http://www.hp.com/recycle
HP offers  an easy way to recycle HP brand computer equipment, printing cartridges, and rechargeable batteries.

Lexmark - http://www.lexmark.com/recycle
Lexmark offers services for recycling your empty inkjet cartridges, toner cartridges, and printers.

Dell - http://www.dell.com/recycle
Dell offers services for recycling printer cartridges, computers, and printers.

Canon - http://www.canon.com/recycle
Canon offers recycling services for toner cartridges only.

Epson – http://www.epson.com/recycle
Epson offers recycling services for printers, scanners, projectors, and more.

Xerox - http://www.xerox.com/recycle
Xerox offers services for recycling toner cartridges.

All of the above services will provide you with a paid shipping labels you can use to send your empty cartridges or hardware to the manufacturer. If you are looking to get a little something in return for your recycling efforts, you might want to try out the recycling programs offered by the office superstores.

Staples - http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/products/3dollar_inkrecycle/
Staples offers rewards points for select printer cartridges. They are currently offering $2 per empty cartridge with a max of 10 cartridges per month.

Office Depot - http://www.officedepot.com/a/promo/pages/0912_green/
Office Depot’s Worklife rewards programs rewards customers for recycling printer cartridges.

Should you trust remanufactured printer cartridges for your printing needs? The company that made your printer is spending millions trying to convince you that you should not but just about every store you go in to offers some type of remanufactured cartridge as an alternative to the manufacturer brand cartridge. What to do?

Let’s take a look at a few facts that might help you decide.

We’ll start with the two biggest advantages offered by remanufactured printer cartridges; they are environmentally friendly and they are inexpensive. Since remanufactured cartridges are produced with reused materials, fewer natural resources are used to provide you with a cartridge you can put in your printer. Because fewer resources are used and less production takes place, remanufactured cartridges are less expensive than their manufacturer brand equivalent.

For some, these two facts alone are enough to answer the question, should you trust them? Others of you might need a bit more information. Let’s take a look at the remanufacturing process.

Remanufacturing a printer cartridge is a multi-step process. Some remanufacturers do it very well, others not so well. While no company will completely disclose their exact process, the general process is as follows.

Empty cartridges are first visually inspected for damage. There are varying levels of visual inspection. I know of a few companies that will refuse to remanufacture a cartridge at the slightest sign of damage. Unfortunately, there are others who ignore major signs of damage. It’s the yin and the yang of the industry! Regardless of their level of inspection, all damaged parts are repaired or replaced. The next step is to test the cartridge’s circuits to make sure they are still functioning properly.

Cartridges are then cleaned and emptied of any remaining waste ink/toner or ink/toner  residue.  Once clean the cartridges are filled with an ink or toner that the remanufacturer claims is equivalent to the manufacturer brand ink. Remember, it cannot be the same ink. Printer manufacturers hold patents on their ink formulations. Unless a remanufacturer were to license the formualation it is illegal for them to use it (or to claim it).

After the cartridge is filled, it must go through a very important process. The sealing process is of the utmost importance to the cartridge. If a remanufactured cartridge is not sealed properly you can expect a cartridge that does not print with any quality, if it prints at all. Once sealed the cartridge is print tested. Some remanufacturers do multiple print tests, others only do one. The print out from the remanufactured cartridge is matched to a print out from a manufacturer brand cartridge. If the prints match the cartridge moves to the packaging phase. If the prints don’t match, some remanufacturers will still move the cartridge to the packaging phase. It’s the yin and the yang of the industry again!

The final step is to clean the cartridge, one last time, and then to put it in a sealed plastic bag and retail box.

Are you feeling some trust now?

You should be. The key to all of this is finding the right place to buy your remanufactured cartridges. If you can do that you can have a high level of trust in the cartridge you are getting. Reputable cartridge vendors only deal with reputable remanufacturers. They know the cartridge they provide to you reflects directly on them and your desire to keep buying cartridges from them.

Remanufactured inkjet and toner cartridges are a low price alternative to the expensive printer manufacturer brand cartridges, but are we about to see them become extinct?

Printer manufacturers have been trying for years to eliminate these cartridges from the market place. Why? Because remanufactured cartridges eat in to the profits earned by your printer manufacturer. If you are buying a remanufactured printer cartridge, you are not buying a cartridge made by the company that made your printer. Remember, these companies depend on the sales of printer cartridges to really make their profits. Printer manufacturers currently use two major tactics to eliminate remanufactured cartridges from the marketplace.

The first tactic is the lawsuit. Printer manufactures have a history of bringing lawsuits against those that  remanufacture printer cartridges. The suits are based on infringement of design patents.

The second tactic is recycling. Yes, recycling! In most cases printer manufacturers are recycling cartridges and doing the “green thing”. But, their recycling programs also keep empty printer cartridges out of the hands of remanufacturers. Remember, in order to remanufacture ink cartridges, you must first have an empty ink cartridge.

Remanufacturers depend on a steady flow of empty ink cartridges to work with. If they don’t have the “empties” they have nothing to work with.

I would not deem either of the printer manufacturer’s tactics as overly effective. The lawsuits have come and gone, the recycling programs have been in place for years, but the remanufactured printer cartridge has continued to flourish.

Now comes a threat that could effect your ability to use remanufactured cartridges (it has nothing to do with the printer manufacturers) . . . A shortage of empty cartridges caused by consumer habits.

That’s right, we are creating our own dilemma!

Without a steady supply of empty inkjet and toner cartridges, the remanufacturing industry cannot survive. Our recession kicked off a series of events that have severely limited the supply of empty cartridges.

As the recession took hold, the nation underwent a drastic change in their printing habits. Everyone was looking to save money where ever they could. Home and work printing was an area where cutbacks occurred in order to achieve savings. Printer cartridge users either cut back on the amount of actual pages they printed or they switched over to remanufactured cartridges.

Both of these have a direct effect on emtpy cartridge availability. Remanufacturers rely on a certain percentage of the population to buy printer manufacturer brand cartridges. They then collect these cartridges to be remanufactured. If  consumers are printing less, then less manufacturer brand cartridges are being purchased. The fewer that are purchased, the fewer that are available to be remanufactured. When consumers switch from manufacturer brand cartridges to remanufactured cartridges, less manufacturer brand cartridges are available to be remanufactured.

What’s the fallout from an empty cartridge shortage? Well, I doubt remanufactured cartridges will go extinct, but we will see the price of these cartridges increase. As this happens remanufactured cartridges will become a less attractive offer for those trying to save money. When that happens the only alternative is to go back to the manufacturer brand cartridges.

Isn’t that what we were trying to get away from? Kind of ironic, huh?

I recently have a friend contact me about switching his printer over to a Continuous Ink Supply System (CISS). Maybe you’ve heard it called other names, Continuous Flow System (CFS), Bulk Feed Ink System, or an Off-Axis Ink Delivery System. Which ever name you refer to this system by, it provides a method for saving on the cost or printer ink. They system allows you to buy large containers of printer ink that connect to a special cartridge system you put in your printer (where the cartridges go). A set of tubes then connects the large containers to the cartridge system. When the containers run out of ink, you replace them.

What are the advantages of this type of system?

Well, first and foremost,  you are going to save money. You may invest a little more to get started, but over time using a CISS will save you money. You’ll just be buying ink rather than an entire cartridge. You’ll also be replacing your ink far last often.

Second, you’ll be able to refill or replace ink while your printer is printing. Because the ink is no longer contained within the cartridge inside the printer you won’t have to stop everything when you need printer ink. Simply refill the exterior ink holder and you are good to go. Ever notice how each time you replace a cartridge your printer needs to run an alignment and cleaning process. This requires the use of ink. With a CISS, there is no need for either of these processes.

What are the disadvantages of a CISS?

The ink for Continuous Ink Supply Systems is not made by your printer manufacturer. For this reason, some say that it is not of ‘good quality’ and your prints won’t look at good as they would if you had used a printer manufacturer brand cartridge. Maybe this is true, maybe this is not. It’s something you will have to decide for yourself.

Using a CISS requires some retrofitting of your printer. In order to get a CISS to work in your printer, you are going to have to make some physical changes to the printer. A few systems will require you to cut a hole in your printer so the ink tubes can be connected to the cartridge unit.

Printers are made with close fitting cartridge holders. If you check out your printer you will see that the ink cartridge fits snugly in its holder. This can make it difficult, or impossible, to install a retrofit cartridge unit in your printer. There is simply not enough room. Additionally, jamming may occur when the tubing gets in the way of the path of the print head. The only prevent this is to permanently remove the printer’s cover and cut holes in to the printer’s body for the tubing to run through. In some cases you may also need to modify the printer’s carriage (the part that holds the cartridges) by removing the cartridge clips.

Here’s the danger in making all these physical changes to your printer . . . You warranty will definitely be voided.

Is CISS right for you?

Maybe , maybe not. You need to decide. If you don’t mind making modifications to your printer that will void its warranty and are up for saving money on printer ink, a CISS is for you.

If reading any of this made you nervous, the CISS is not for you.

Are we headed toward printer ink cartridges shortages?

The devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11 has forced many printer cartridge manufacturers to suspend operations in their printer cartridge plants. Canon has reported significant damages to to one of their inkjet printer manufacturing plants and has suspended work in eight of its plants. Kyocera Mita has ceased work at two of its facilities.

HP gets components for its LaserJet printer engines and toner cartridges from a partner with manufacturing facilities in Japan. It’s quite possible that the partner’s plants have been closed.

While the majority of printer ink cartridges and toner cartridges are not produced in Japan, many of the parts that are used to make cartridges and printers are produced in Japan. The countries inability to produce these parts as well as their inability to distribute any parts that have been manufactured (due to infrastructure damages) will make it difficult for companies like HP and Canon to maintain a cartridge production schedule that is anything close to what they were able to do prior to the earthquake and tsunami.

Personally, I don’t foresee any impact to our consumers because of the damages. There are a few reasons. First, I believe production schedules prior to the damages have created an adequate supply of printer ink to sustain our needs. Second, the HP’s and Canon’s of the world have (we hope) contingency plans in place to continue sourcing the parts they need for cartridges. They will make sure they get the parts they need so they can maintain sales of their most profitable product.

Last, a slight change in our printing habits will guarantee we don’t have any shortages. Start buying remanufactured printer cartridges or get your empty ink cartridge refilled. Remanufactured cartridges are producted from existing empty cartridges. There are plenty of those in the world. When you refill your empty cartridge, all you need is the ink. There’s not shortage of that either.

Good luck Japan. We’re thinking of you.

One of our Facebook friends recently let us know that HP might be discontinuing the HP 45 (51645A) and HP 78 (C6578DN) cartridges. She shared that she was recently at Sam’s Club and found signs that said these two cartridges would be discontinued as of March 31, 2011. She also shared that she called HP to find out if the discontinuation was true, that HP would not confirm or deny her inquiry, and she felt she was given the “run around”.

I’m honored that her next step was to see what I knew and, since, I don’t buy in to the “run around” I got down to some research.

I first did a web search to see if HP had released any information pertaining to these cartridges. I did not find anything specific from HP, but a search result from Walmart.com showed:

Shop Low Prices on: HP 45 Black Inkjet Cartridge (51645A) : Computers. … This item is being discontinued. Availability is limited. …

A similar result showed for the HP C6578DN cartridge.

Shop Low Prices on: HP 78 Tri-color Inket Cartridge (C6578DN) : Computers. … This item is being discontinued. Availability is limited. …

My web search didn’t leave me with much more than I had begun with. At that point I figured I would get on the phone and find out from HP directly. A friendly rep confirmed that, yes, the HP 45 and HP 78 cartridges are being discontinued. She did not have a concrete date because HP wants to sell all of the cartridges it has manufactured.

Here’s my take.

Walmart, Sam’s Club, and other retail stores will be quick to discontinue selling these two cartridges because at the end of this month HP will not longer sell the 45 and 78 to them. Depending on the agreements HP has with other retail stores, the cartridges may be available in stores for a while longer. But, in time the only way to get these cartridges will be online. HP will continue to sell them through their web site until they are completely out of stock. Once that happens these two cartridges will be hard to come by and some folks will be forced to upgrade their printers.

The 51645A and C6578DN cartridges have been around for about 10-15 years. HP has not made a printer that uses these cartridges for years. Printer cartridges technology has come a long way since these cartridges were HP’s top sellers.

Either stock up or upgrade, but either way we’re saying goodbye to these cartridges!

Going green is all the rage these these days. Most everyone wants to do their part to help ease the burden we are placing on Mother Earth. Each industry has adopted certain systems and released products that are earth friendly. The printer cartridge industry is doing it’s part – with soy ink and soy toner.

Standard printer ink and toner are petroleum (oil) based. The petroleum is then combined with other man made chemicals which allows you to put all those words and pictures on pages. Soy based ink and toner is touted as eco-friendly because it is made from soy beans, which are grown as crops throughout the world. If it’s grown on a farm it’s got to be good, right? Maybe not.

Before we all jump on the soy ink bandwagon, let’s take a closer look.

Soy based ink and toner is 35% soy. The remaining 65% of the ink is made from petroleum. The majority of the ink and toner is petroleum based.  This is not necessarily a bad thing. To make a product green you have to start somewhere and then move toward the 100% recycled level. It’s taken paper products a while to get there. Hard core environmentalists will say that 65% is way to high. And, yes it is a high number, but being 35% soy based is not to bad either. Hundreds of millions of ink and toner cartridges are produced each year. If 35% of the ink and toner that goes in to these is soy based, our oil consumption goes down by a millions of gallons.

Beside less oil use, soy ink is better than petroleum because it has low levels of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s). VOC’s release toxic emissions, which cause air pollution. Additionally, soy toner is made from a byproduct of soy bean farming. A byproduct is a secondary or incidental product deriving from a manufacturing process. No new crops are needed in order to produce ink and toner. They simply use what is left from the standard soy harvesting and processing process.

So, the printer ink industry is getting greener. Soy sounds like a pretty good product to use. But, what happens as the demand for soy based ink grows? Are there an negative effects on the it’s ability to remain eco-friendly?

Some would say no, but only because they are considering the ink itself. What about the resources that go in to growing soy beans?  Most don’t trace back to the origin of the products used to make the ink.

As the demand for soy ink grows, more soy bean crops are going to have to be planted in order to create the byproduct needed. History has demonstrated what happens when farmers are pushed to produce more of a certain crop – they get less ec0-friendly. The need for machines is increased, farming practices that aren’t earth friendly are adopted, harsher pesticides are introduced, and growth enhancing chemicals begin to be used. None of these things have a beneficial effect on the environment. If we trace back to its source, is soy ink still eco-friendly?

Currently the majority of soy bean crops are planted with genetically modified soy beans. Some believe that these types of beans are detrimental to the environment. The process of genetically modifying a crop introduces new components in to the genetic make up of the crop, thereby increasing the levels of VOC’s.

Finally, the planting of soy beans, as a crop, is the major reason for deforestation along the Amazon River, in Brazil. Forests are being cleared to create land to plant soy beans on, the same beans that are used to created so ink. We are all well aware of the concern over deforestation (global warming).

So, is soy ink good or bad? Are you looking from the surface level or tracing back to the origin of the products used to make soy based ink? You get to decide, but take a second to let me know your decision is. Thanks!

Last week we talked about the cheap laser printer, today we are going to talk about cheap printer ink. The cost of manufacturer brand printer cartridges is a hot topic amongst those that own both inkjet and laser printers. The need for lower cost printer ink solutions has created a market for compatible and remanufactured cartridges. It’s also created a market for less expensive manufacturer brand cartridges.

When you head out to your favorite search engine and search for ‘cheap printer ink‘ you may not know exactly what you are looking for. Compatible cartridges . . . Remanufactured cartridges . . . Manufacturer brand cartridges. All you know is that you want something that costs less than what you would pay HP, Epson, Canon, or Lexmark for one of their cartridges. So, what exactly could  you end up with, and should you buy it?

Any time you can get a manufacturer brand cartridge for what you feel is cheap,  you should do it. Why? Because you are going to get the best print with manufacturer brand cartridges. There are quite a few who won’t agree with me, but it’s true. Printers are manufactured with certain preset, and unchangeable, calibration settings. The settings are set for printing with manufacturer brand inks. Based on that fact alone, you will get better print outs using manufacturer brand cartridges. Vendors of compatible and remanufactured cartridges will tell you that their ink is the same as the manufacturer brand inks. Don’t believe it. By law they can’t be. Manufacturers hold patents on their ink formulations, and patents prevent others from copying the formula. Even though the formula can’t be the same, it is possible for vendors of remanufactured and compatible cartridges to say their cartridges print the same as a manufacturer brand cartridge, but this is just an opinion and subject to the person viewing the print out.

To me, a search for cheap printer ink means you are looking for compatible or remanufactured cartridges. You will definitely save some money using these cartridges, but should you use them?

Cheap printer ink is fine for general use printing, but if you need color accuracy because you are printing something you consider important or official you should go with the manufacturer brand cartridge. You are going to get a better looking print because your printer is designed to work with manufacturer brand inks (mentioned above). All the printer color profiles are based upon the manufacturer ink formulation.

The bottom line . . . if perfect color is important you need a manufacturer brand cartridge. If not, go with the cheap printer ink. You won’t damage your printer and you will save some money.

People like to save money, not matter what they are purchasing, so I often get folks that want to know where they can buy a cheap laser printer. I guess there are two ways to look at cheap. A cheap laser printer can either cost very little or be made with very little quality. I usually assume that one would rather buy the laser printer that costs very little versus buying the one that has low quality. Skimp on quality and you are asking for a whole lot of trouble, not matter how little you paid. Remember, you get what you pay for. That said, let’s talk about the cheap laser printer and how we can get our hands on them.

The least you can expect to pay for a laser printer, from a mid to large sized retailer, is between $300-$400.  At this price point you are going to get a single color (black) printer with some pretty slow print speeds (20 or fewer pages per minute). Don’t expect to get any scanning/copying functions, duplexing, wireless connectivity, or direct printing from USB type devices. You can expect a moderate duty cycle, the maximum number of pages the printer can print per month, in the 40,000 page range. There are some very reliable printers in this price range (HP Color LaserJet CP2025n, HP LaserJet P2015dn, Samsung SCX-4100), so even if you aren’t cheap and are just on a limited budget you’ll be able to get a quality printer.

Did you know that laser printer prices range from free to as high as $5000.00? How can the range be so large?

For you cheap laser printer seekers free is the ultimate, right? If you can get it for free you are a happy camper! To find a free laser printer you are going to have to spend some time looking around. Free laser printers are going to be found on Craig’s List or at liquidation sales. To find liquidation sales you are going to have to scour the Internet or newspapers for public postings. What you save in money you may spend in time. Still, it is very cool to be able to say you got yourself a free laser printer.

Okay, let’s get back to cheap. If you look on comparison shopping web sites you will often see a range of a few hundred dollars for any one type of printer. The same $300-$400 printer we mentioned above can be found online for between $200 and $575. Huh? If I can go to a mid to large sized retailer and get it for $300-$400, how can it be found online for $200-$575? That’s the power of the Internet. We’ll ignore the $575 part because that’s just not cheap enough. But the $200, now I’m saving at least $100.

The lesson? If you are cheap, check the Internet. You are bound go find the laser printer you want for a lower price than you would pay in a store. There are some trade-offs, but we are just talking about saving money so price is our only determinant.

Get out there and get yourself a cheap laser printer. Search the Internet, search the newspapers, look for store closeouts, or ask  your friends. Bottom line is that you’ll be spending some time researching this purchase in order to find the best deal, so be prepared. Good luck!

Do inkjet cartridges explode? If you listen to some customers you would believe they do. If you listen to me you’ll see that the inkjet cartridge can give the appearance of having exploded, but it really does not.

In the 11+ years I’ve been doing this the exploding inkjet cartridge call is one that I get a few times a year. The rationale that I’m about to share usually falls on deaf ears when I explain it. Why? Because I’ve got a customer on the phone with ink on the inside of their printer. The last thing they want to hear is me telling them they are wrong and the cartridge did not explode. They want to hear how everything is going to be taken care of.

So, take the time now to read this post. It will save us both a lot of time and energy if you feel your inkjet cartridge exploded inside your printer.

I am going to focus on HP brand cartridges and remanufactured HP cartridges because almost all complaints stem from this type of cartridge. Ah, we’ve already got a trend! Additionally these reports are happening with older HP printers and older model HP inkjet cartridges. A second trend!

The design of the older HP printers includes an absorbent pad that captures all of the ink drops that the printer uses. The pad helps clean the print head of every inkjet cartridge that has ever been installed in the printer. Besides collecting ink drops each time a new cartridge is installed, the pad also collects ink from a rubber wipe (think windshield wiper) that wipes the cartridge each time you start a print job.

After a few years the pad reaches the limits of what it can absorb and ink begins to overflow from the sponge and the tray the sponge sits in. The ink then forms a pool under the printer that goes unnoticed until someone moves the printer. Picture the reaction to a pool of ink under the printer. Most assume that the inkjet cartridge exploded, not that it leaked. So very few know that mechanics of the inkjet printer that they would never guess the absorbent pad leaked and there is nothing wrong with the cartridge.

The next time you find a puddle of ink under your printer and get the urge to pick up the phone and tell everyone that your inkjet cartridge exploded, take a minute and remember what you have read.

1. Cartridges don’t explode!

2. Although unlikely, cartridges can leak. Talk to the company you purchased your cartridge from. They will be able to help you.

3. Check your printer. If it is 3-4 years old, it may be the cause of the the ink puddle.

If you have any ideas to share about exploding inkjet cartridges please take a minute to share them. Thanks!