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Five Good Reasons To Recycle Inkjet Cartridges

by: Bob Stephens

Recycling empty inkjet cartridges is an easy way for anybody to help to reduce the impact on our landfills.

Here are 5 great reasons to recycle your empty inkjet cartridges.

To start with, almost 3 entire pounds of resources involved in production are saved when a cartridge is recycled.

Next, an average inkjet cartridge takes an average of 3.5 oz. of oil to be manufactured. This can really add up over time.

The third reason you should recycle or reuse your empty inkjet cartridges is to reduce the strain on local landfills. An inkjet cartridge does not biodegrade in a landfill, as other waste will over time. Once a cartridge is discarded, it will be there for several hundred years. Did you know that each year over 300 million printer cartridges are thrown away? This equates into about 75,000 tons of garbage. To give you an idea how much that is, that he is equal in late to nearly 30,000 full grown African elephants.

The forth reason is the buying remanufactured (recycled) inkjet cartridges continue money. Recycling your empty cartridges provides empty cores to cartridge remanufacturing companies that in turn, professionally refill and sell to users at a discounted price. Consumers will see the same reliability, performance and quality as using an original brand OEM cartridge but at a lower cost.

Lastly, recycling your empty inkjet cartridges is relatively easy. In fact, a lots of companies that offer remanufactured cartridges have their own recycling programs.

An easy method for printer owners to recycle inkjet cartridges is through the use of postage paid return envelopes that are sometimes included with an online inkjet cartridge purchase.

A return mailer (recycle envelope) is usually a self-sealing plastic bag that is pre-addressed to a recycling company. The consumer puts their empty inkjet cartridge into the bag, seals it, and drops it off at a post office or any mailbox. The postage is included, and the whole process takes just a few seconds.

If you are going to need more ink, a great way to recycle is through the use of an inkjet cartridge refilling service such as the Jetpak mailer program.

With the Jetpak mailer program, the customer purchases a special refilling service mailer in advance. When the customer runs out of ink, they place the empty cartridge into the postage paid mailing box and drop it in the mail. When the cartridge refilling company receives the empty cartridge, the refilling service cleans, inspects, and professionally refills the cartridges and mails it back to the customer.

In about one week the refilled cartridge is returned. This provides a big savings over buying a new cartridge and also lowers the strain on our landfills.

Why recycle? Why not recycle?

It reduces garbage, saves money, saves natural resources, and as the responsible thing to do.

Just because an empty inkjet cartridge is out of ink, doesn't mean it's broken.

It just means that its prime for recycling.

ASAP Inkjets sells inkjet cartridges and laser toner at up to 80% below retail store prices. Signup for their free newsletter for tips & discounts at: subscribe@asapinkjets.com or visit http://www.asapinkjets.com/

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How-To Refill Your Ink Cartridge

by: Marisa Pellegrino

Forget about emptying your wallets every time you see the blinking light. Quit worrying and start doing it yourself! It’s an easy process that won’t take you more than five minutes.

The following is included in a typical ink refill kit: ink bottles, syringes and detailed instructions. Some kits include an air balance clip for balancing the air inside the cartridge to ensure proper ink flow. Some kits also include hand-drill tool to make a hole in the top of your empty cartridge.

Refilling Process

1. To start the refilling process, fill the syringe with one of the ink colors over the sink or several sheets of scrap paper to prevent any mess. Different printers hold different amounts of ink. In most Epson printers, the black cartridge holds approximately 17 ml and the color cartridges hold approximately 8 ml. See the instructions with your refill kit to see how much ink your cartridges can hold.

2. Before inserting the needle, make a small hole in the top of the cartridge (one for each color chamber). The hole is at the top of the cartridge near the label. Simply push the needle through the hole and press to the bottom of the cartridge towards the outlet hole. It’s important to fill the cartridge slowly so as to avoid the ink from foaming and introducing air in the chamber.

3. You do not need to seal the refill holes since there are already breather holes on the top of the cartridge.

4. Any unused ink can be put back in the bottle. You should clean the syringe with water and dry it properly to do the same process for the other cartridges or for future use. You can also label each syringe for the different colors so that each syringe is only used with one color.

5. Once you place the cartridge back in the printer, run the cleaning cycle 1 to 3 times. If there are any gaps in the printing, run the cleaning cycle again.

Don’t Forget

There are a few things to remember when refilling your cartridge. It should be refilled before the cartridge is completely empty to avoid the chamber from drying out and clogging. Also, it is a good idea to let the printer cartridge sit for a few hours (or overnight) so that the pressure in the cartridge will stabilize.

Some printers, like newer Epson models, have a green chip on their ink cartridges which is visible by looking at your cartridge. They are often referred to as “Intellidge" cartridges. The chip keeps track of how often the cartridge is used and lets the computer know when the cartridge may be low or empty. As long as you reset the chip, refilling the cartridge with ink from a refill kit will not be a problem. A resetting tool can be used to reset the memory on the chip. This allows the printer to recognize the cartridge as being full which makes printing with a refilled cartridge possible.

Refilling your own ink cartridge is easy, good for the environment, and very good for your pocket.

About the Author:

A recent grad from Concordia University's English Department, Marisa uses her computer technology skills along side her writing skills to be the webmaster for The Print Pot. Sharing her interest and expertise about ink jet refill kits has helped convince many of the advantages of refilling rather than discarding empty cartridges.

source:searchwarp.com

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