Make your cartridge count

Illawarra Mercury

Friday March 25, 2011

Millions of inkjet cartridges are used in Australia and sadly many of these are not refilled or recycled. They end up in landfill where they can take more than 450 years to decompose. Every cartridge refilled is one less cartridge going to landfill.Cartridge World, South Coast Ink and Toner Supplies are some of the many businesses that are doing everything they can to reduce that impact.��We can recharge a huge range of cartridges utilising the technical ��know-how�� developed over the years and the resources of international suppliers to provide you with a product that will cost less than new and perform like the original,�� a Cartridge World spokesperson said.��We use only premium parts, with toners, inks and technology sourced from top suppliers designed to match the specific requirements of your cartridge.Once the cartridge has been recharged it is tested to ensure a quality print.��We guarantee the cartridges serviced by Cartridge World will perform as well as the original equipment.��If the cartridge cannot be refilled, then recycling is the next option. Cartridges 4 Planet Ark is a successful electronic waste recovery and recycling program.In almost eight years more than 14 million printer cartridges have been collected with laser printer cartridges accounting for over 90 per cent of all throwaway cartridges The cartridges dropped into a Cartridges 4 Planet Ark box can end up in many places such as a fridge, a park bench, a ruler and the ink in a roller ball pen to name a few examples.About half of the laser cartridges end up back with their original maker to be re-manufactured back into cartridges.The cost of collecting, transporting, and recycling the cartridges, as well as promoting the program, is paid for by the participating equipment manufacturers - Brother, Canon, Epson, Konica Minolta and Lexmark.Join the Planet Ark campaign to reach 15 million by the end of this month so collect all your old cartridges and drop them off now. You can drop your cartridges into participating Australia Post, Harvey Norman, Dick Smith, Tandy, JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys and Officeworks stores.If your workplace, business, community group, uni or school uses more than three inkjet, toner cartridges or toner bottles a month you may be eligible for a free ��Cartridges 4 Planet Ark�� collection box.See www.planetark.org for more information.How cartridges are recycled: Once there, they are hand sorted and their brand and type recorded. If not sent back to the manufacturers, the inkjet cartridges, toner bottles and drum units are processed through the patented, Australian- made Green Machine, which reduces the cartridges to smaller particles that can be more easily separated.Inkjet cartridges are processed through another machine, which also uses patented world-first technology.Magnets are used to remove ferrous (iron-based) metals while eddie currents are used to remove aluminium.The end result of this process is the recovery of ��raw�� materials. These ��secondary raw materials�� are further filtered, upgraded and then used instead of virgin materials in normal manufacturing to make new products.