Getting Rid Of Those Empty Ink Cartridges?
Of course, you can throw your empty ink cartridges away, or you can build a house of "carts" with them... or you can dispose of them in a way that will benefit both you and somebody in need.
There are lots of charities across the world who are fundraising through inkjet recycling. Money received from gathering these empty printer cartridges is donated to charities that help both children and adults with programs that range from providing disaster relief to helping the physically and/or financially disadvantaged in every part of the globe.
Also many of these recycling groups want your inkjet cartridge badly enough to send you a postage-paid envelope to get it to them. Some charitable recycling programs even offer cash back to your business or group-recycling program while others offer heavy discounts on inkjet refills. So it's a win-win for everyone involved.
I guess you might say that these recycling activities are taking charities out of the "hand-out" classification, pushing them beyond the ‘leg-up" category and turning them into outfits that are lending all of us a hand. After all, if you don't give your empty inkjet cartridge to charity, what will you do with it? If you answered, "throw it in the trash", well then, you've just indicated your willingness to throw your money away! Unless of course, your garbage guys do your pick-ups for free....which is highly unlikely.
There is one small downside to giving your cartridge to charity. That's the fact that not everyone looks at recycling in the same way. Have you ever seen the recycling circle? Unfortunately some companies that claim to recycle are donating your cartridge to something they call "energy from waste".
In other words, your cartridge won't be cleaned, inspected, refilled and sold as a recycled, re-manufactured inkjet refill. The ink, for these companies, stops flowing at the incinerator. However, if you focus on the good your recycled cartridges can do, the break in the recycling chain is a minimal price to pay to get rid of what would otherwise be your trash!