Don't Accept Environmental Assault From Knockoff Inkjet Cartridges.

November 16 2021, by Kathleen Merz, 2 min reading time

To understand the environmental cost of printer cartridges, you must understand the different kinds available on the market.

It’s estimated that over 375,000,000 cartridges end up in U.S landfills every year. That’s over a million a day, and roughly 11 cartridges every second. Printer cartridges can take up to 1000 years to decompose, and it takes about a gallon of oil to produce a new toner cartridge.

To understand the environmental cost of printer cartridges, you must understand the different kinds available on the market.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, there is a $35 billion fight over printer cartridges between name-brand OEM cartridges, remanufactured cartridges, and newly built single-use compatible cartridges from overseas.

Name-brand printer cartridges are produced by the original equipment manufacturer, such as HP, Canon, Epson, etc. These cartridges are generally expensive and lead individuals to search for low-cost alternatives.

A remanufactured cartridge starts with a used or empty OEM printer cartridge that has been recycled, cleaned, rebuilt, refilled, and tested for quality assurance. If remanufactured professionally, it should meet or exceed the quality performance of the name brand.

Compatible printer cartridges are newly built, single-use cartridges. (Often considered 'knock-offs', 'clones' or 'counterfeit cartridges' of the OEM’s printer cartridges.) These cartridges are manufactured overseas, made from all new parts (as opposed to recycled) or are poorly remanufactured printer cartridges.

Both remanufactured and compatible cartridges are low-cost alternatives to the high-priced OEM printer cartridges, but at what cost do these newly built single-use compatible cartridges have on the environment?

More than two ounces of oil is used to produce every printer cartridge. That means we are going through more than 4,000,000 gallons of oil for cartridges each year.
Newly built single-use compatible cartridges from overseas cannot be recycled. They just add more plastic waste to our landfills.

The U.S Cartridge Remanufacturing industry evolved as a solution for single-use cartridges in a multibillion-dollar consumable printing market. A large abundance of waste can be reduced, or practically eliminated if consumers choose to buy U.S remanufactured cartridges as opposed to newly built single-use compatibles from overseas.

U.S-made Remanufactured printer cartridges extend the lifecycle of a genuine OEM cartridge and can be 50% less in price. Remanufactured cartridges are truly the only eco-friendly, recycled print consumable products on the market.

If you are looking for a low-cost alternative to buying OEM branded printer cartridges, consider U.S. remanufactured cartridges over compatibles.