Epson Ink Cartridge Recycling ProgramHello Greenopolis Community, I REALLY try as a person and a business owner to recycle, to reduce my carbon footprint and generally do everything within my power reasonably to live a green lifestyle. I do all of my billing online but when we do need to print we reuse printer paper to print on both sides and if possible print on the "draft" settings to reduce ink consumption. So it occurred to me that I have NEVER found ANY recycling program for my Epson Ink Jet Printer. So I contacted the Epson Recycling Program to find out where the local recycling center was for their cartridges or where I needed to send my cartridges I have been saving to be recycled. The answer I received was that they were currently "looking into options" and hadn't come up with any formal program yet. That was several months ago. Every other major manufacturer of ink jet printers has at least some form of inkjet recycling program for their ink jet cartridges and their printers for the parts to be stripped and repurposed rather than just being thrown in a landfill somewhere. HP actually is proto-typing a printer made COMPLETELY from recycled materials. A company of Epson's size should have a plan ALREADY in place at this point to reduce the environmental impact of the amount of cartridges that they produce. If you are also an Epson user and/or are as concerned about their lack of action, send an email to recycle_support@ea.epson.com and request that they move forward immediately with their recycling program. All the best,
Eric Guerin
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There are many kinds of
There are many kinds of printers ranging fromt he old dot matrix ones to laser and ink jet printers. I use an HP inkjet printer and guys from my person experience I can tell you that my current HP printer is far better than the old Epson Stylus one I used. I do not think I'd like to try a cannon printer at all. Finding a HP compatible toner is not that hard either. That's the reason I guess why HP printers are the best in the business.
Keith,
hp compatible toner
Recycling program
Recycling of inkjet cartridges is useful in many different ways. However, before you choose where to recycle your inkjet cartridge, do a little research to make your recycling efforts effective. Epson, in cooperation with Funding Factory, recently launched a free recycling program for customers. Schools and businesses can get points for collecting and remitting empty cartridges to Epson. However, the cartridges are not remanufactured or refilled. They are burned. It’s easy to see that Epson is the big winner in this recycling effort.
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Anderson smith
Great Deals on Printer Ink Cartridges - Up to 65% Off HP, Espon, Lexmark, Dell, Canon and more.
Ink Cartridges
I Switched To Brother
I use Brother for my black and white and color laser printing needs. Besides being better printers imho, they seem to be a leader in recycling. With each toner cartridge, you are given a return bag and free USPS postage tag to send it back to them where they either recycle it or use it for re-manufacture. You actually re-use the original box and shipping material, which also saves a bit of environmental strain.
http://www.brother-usa.com/environment/TonerInkDisposal.aspx
Rather make them recycle
I thought about switching but unfortunately every time I have switched away from Epson printers in the past 10 years I have had horrible results. I had a Canon that couldn't print two sheets in a row the same color quality and an HP that had horrible resolution issues. My company has to do a lot of work with exact Pantone color matches and the only printers I have found that do this consistently and keep their print quality are Epsons. I also don't want to go through the trouble of completely stripping the parts of my Epson printer to be recycled when it is a perfectly fine printer, it's their corporate recycling program that I have a problem with.
I just find it odd that a company like Epson that is on the cutting edge with their printer quality can be so far in the stone age when it comes to their environmental stewardship. I would love for every person who own's an Epson to write into their recycling department and push them on the issue. The squeaky wheel gets the grease : )
All the best,
Eric Guerin
SmartMarket Movie
http://www.smartmarketmovie.com
What is most important?
I actually switched away from Epson to Brother purely on quality issues. I had a very bad experience with a couple of Epson printers that failed at 1 yr + a few days, and vowed never to go back.
After talking to a lot of folks, the consensus seemed to be Brother (at least in the laser market) so I switched and have been very happy ever since. The toner recycling program just turned out to be a bonus.
That aside, let's get back to an important question. Is "green" more or less important than perceived quality or feature/function of a product.
It is something I am starting to notice in my normal consumption patterns. For example, I bought an Apple TV and absolutely loved it. However, I soon realized that it was a power hog and shut it down. Now I debate on whether to sell it on eBay (and thus transfer the energy waste to another person) or just send it to an electronics recycling firm (also a hard thing to do since it is a very new product with no other defects other than power consumption).
This really makes me wish that there was some sort of "green" certification program for products that combined aspects of RoHS, USDA Organic, Energy Star and Recycling so we could make informed consumer decisions before we buy a product.