Even if getting up to £4.50 per cartridge isn’t enough, there are environmental reasons why you should recycle your ink cartridges.

When a cartridge runs out of ink and stops printing, we may not give a seconds thought about throwing it away. At first glance, you may think that an ink cartridge is not recyclable. This isn’t the case. Throwing away ink cartridges adds unnecessary pollutants and toxins into the environment.

Each year there are millions of ink cartridges thrown away. In fact, it is estimated that in the UK, 45 million empty or used cartridges end up here. These end up being thrown in landfill sites, where they can take up to 1000 years to decompose. What’s more, the process of producing just one brand new cartridge wastes 8.0 kg of CO2 and close to a 1lb of oil. All this can be saved by reusing and recycling ink cartridges.

It’s hard to grasp just how much 45 million cartridges is. So think of it like this, 45 million discarded cartridges could:

- Cover Brighton Pier ten times, stretching out to sea for 3 miles.

- Stretch the entire length of Hadrian’s Wall 15 times, equally 73 miles

- Cover the entire Old Trafford football not once, not twice, but 17 times.

And what becomes of the recycled cartridges? They are professional tested, cleaned, refilled with ink and then resold. Remanufactured cartridges are just as good as original new ones, producing the same high quality prints. The only difference is that they are cheaper, as they have reused a cartridge instead of having to produce a new one.

And it isn’t just the UK. Every year, over 375 million empty ink cartridges are thrown away worldwide. To put this into perspective, 375 million cartridges is:

- 1,000,000 cartridges per day.

- 11 cartridges per second.

- 375 million cartridges, when placed end to end would circle the earth over three times.

By recycling cartridges, we can make our natural resources and energy last longer. Up to 97% of materials used in the manufacture of ink cartridges can be recycled and reused. Empty ink cartridges provide valuable plastic material for reuse and reduce your carbon footprint. So help to reduce the impact of millions of cartridges being thrown away each year and recycle your empty ink cartridges today.