24 million homes in the UK have a personal computer and 90% of those homes have printers. The average household uses 2-3 inkjet cartridges a year and many offices use large numbers of laser cartridges. Only 15 % of the 65 million printer cartridges that are sold in the UK are recycled which means the rest end up in landfill sites and this is major bad news as the plastic used in a typical cartridge is made of engineering grade polymers and is expected to take up to 1000 years to decompose!
Recycling printer cartridges really is worthwhile as cartridges can be expensive and remanufactured printer cartridges can cost as little as 10% of what original cartridges do. By lessening the amount of cartridges ending up in landfill sites, you are being kinder to the environment too.
The Recycling Appeal collects printer cartridges (as well as mobile phones and PDAs) for reuse and recycling. They raise funds for charity whilst helping the environment at the same time. The Recycling Appeal has generated over £2 million for partner organisations since 1999.
They make recycling your old printer cartridges easy by offering free collection envelopes. You simply need to pop your items into a freepost envelope and put it in the post. You can call up or fill out an online form to get an envelope sent out to you. If you have large quantities of items to send, the Recycling Appeal will arrange for a courier to come and collect them from you free of charge.
Recycling Appeal incentives include:
- Freepost envelopes or free collection for multiple items
- Choose your appeal from a number of charities
- Recycle phones, PDAs and printer cartridges
