Why Recycle Ink Cartridges When I Could Throw Them Away?

Most people in Las Vegas recycle plastic bottles, cans, and cardboard out of habit now, but not as many recycle ink cartridges. It is easy to recycle, but often it slips our mind or seems unimportant at the moment, but recycling ink cartridges from your printer could have a larger impact on the environment than you realize. Here are some reasons to recycle your ink cartridges rather than just throw them away.

Save the Materials It Takes to Make Another Ink Cartridge

Plastic seems to be everywhere. So much so that we almost seem desensitized to throwing it away or wasting it. After all, plastic is not gold or precious metal. This has led to us filling our landfills with plastic, which is not good for the environment. Plastic is not very biodegradable so the plastic that we throw away takes years and years to degrade. By recycling ink cartridges, we save over 40,000 tons of plastic from being thrown into the landfill in North America alone. This is without many people participating in recycling cartridges. If we were all to do it this number would increase drastically.

Save Energy and Water and Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Aside from the materials that are actually in the cartridge itself, you cut down on the use of water and energy that it takes to make a replacement cartridge. You may think that there is not a lot of energy used while making a cartridge or that ink cartridges don’t take a lot of water to manufacture, but those assumptions would be incorrect. It likely takes more of both than you would expect. Greenhouse gasses are also emitted when making cartridges, so by reusing your ink cartridge, you will also be helping the earth by saving those gasses from being released.

It Is Easy to Do

It is easier than recycling oil. You can make a phone call, and a company that handles print services in Las Vegas can take care of it for you. This is something that you can do very easily and feel good about helping the environment. It just takes a commitment to remember to recycle rather than throw those old cartridges away and we could keep another 40,000 tons of plastic out of the landfills!