In our area, if you take an empty cartridge to Office Depot (I'm not sure if Office Max or Staples do it) they will give you a ream of recycled printer paper. You can only take one at a time, but I keep a couple in my car for when I'm nearby.

If memory serves, I think the business they go to has been in the recycling business for many years. When I worked for Sears Roebuck and Co.(from 1969-1988), we sent all of our used cash register ink ribbons and cartridges to that same company.

Then Sears bought the recycled products back. The cost was much lower than the ones IBM were selling new and the recycled products worked better too...

Dee

the only "recycling" that can be done with them otherwise is reusing the plastic somehow - find a way to refill and reuse

Bill

Of course, as a "greenie", you need to buy those refilled cartridges to close the marketing loop! :-)

Dee

Many applications don't really need an ink jet, I see lots of these printers being used in places where a laser or dot matrix would be much better suited to the job. Often people buy them because the initial printer cost is very low, frequently because it's heavily subsided by the expensive cartridges, sometimes the printer is sold for less than a full set of cartridges.

However, when you consider the price of ink and special paper, it's multiple times cheaper to take your digital photographs or images to a shop and have them use their state of the art printer worth thousands to print them for you. No need to clutter up your house with another printer, no need to change cartridges or anything. Best of all it's not more work, you can either go out to the store to buy cartridges or you can go to the store to have your pictures printed. The only major difference is price and quality, both of which are better. Some places do it mail order or over the internet now, so you could have your prints sent to you.

Of course some people do need a colour printer at home or in their office, there are genuine needs, but then it's fair to point out that the price of colour laser printers has dropped a lot now, and they're much better suited to high volume applications, but also don't dry up if not used for a while. They also work out much cheaper in the long term. Anyone who can justify their need for a high quality colour printer, for example a high volume of prints being made, can probably justify the initial expense of a colour laser as it will save them so much money in the long term.

Second is that color laser printers still do not reproduce color for photographs and art as well as inkjet printers (especially "photo" printers or those using archival inks). It would be a shame to spend that kind of money on a printer and then not get the color out of it that you wanted to.

For most businesses, though? Laser is the way to go.

You can learn how to save 15%-20% of your printers ink free of charge! How? Eco Font is how. It's a free font with tiny holes in it barely seen with the naked eye with font size 12" (standard size), such as the text your reading right now. You can download the free font by visiting the small article I wrote on the subject located as the optional link in this message below ->

Good Luck, Save Ink, Save Paper, Save the world!