​How Does Your Printer Contribute to Global Pollution?

Although documents are shared online frequently, we also print a lot of these documents in our homes and offices. Because of the need to print we also produce more waste with ink cartridges, however there are some eco-friendly ink cartridge options. This article provides more information on how your preferences impact the global pollution levels.

Impact of Owning a Printer on The Environment

• Despite our efforts to print when necessary, there is still a lot of paper waste at most business places. On an average, there is approximately 12,500 tons of paper waste in the USA. This mainly involves waste from discarded documents, misprints, unnecessary memos, etc.
• The printer ink cartridge is toxic hence if not discarded in the right manner, it leads to greater pollution and harm to the environment.
• Disposing the old ink or toner cartridge into the garbage also has a negative impact on the environment. It tends to lead to water pollution. It takes thousands of years to degrade.
• We tend to upgrade our printers on a regular basis as well and disposing of our old printers contributes a great deal to the electronic waste.
• There is a small percentage of people who leave their printers on all day and print unnecessary documents. This leads to a waste of resources and creates a negative impact on the environment.
• A printer cartridge is made from several materials including chemicals, oil and other materials. Thus, manufacturing a printer cartridge consumes plenty of natural resources and adversely affects the environment.
• A high percentage of people simply dispose of their old cartridges instead of recycling them. These cartridges end up in landfills and take more than 1000 years to decompose.
• An average household emits 1200 kg of CO2 per month. A printer cartridge manufacturing factory producing 200,000 cartridges per month will emit 640,000 kg of CO2 monthly.
• 350 million cartridges are disposed of every year instead of being recycled.
• 55 Million cartridges are disposed of in the UK every year, 120 million in the USA and over 175 million in the rest of the world.
• Over 392 million cartridges were disposed of in 2014. This figure rose to 440 million in 2015. It tends to increase by 12% every year.

Benefits of Remanufactured Cartridges

Remanufactured cartridges are environmentally friendly. They happen to be more affordable and do not void your printer warranty. Opting for this type of cartridge will not affect your print quality either. HouseofInks.com is an eCommerce store where you can shop for remanufactured cartridges for a wide range of printers like Brother, HP, Canon, Epson and many more.

Summary

Owning a printer and printing unnecessary documents contributes to the global pollution levels. Disposing old cartridges instead of recycling them also adds to the environmental pollution. Besides which, opting to buy OEM cartridges means consuming a high percentage of natural resources and also result in additional pollution. On the other hand, opting to invest in remanufactured cartridges is a good way to reduce the impact of owning a printer on the environment.