Thursday, December 17, 2009

Why is it that stores don't recycle Epson ink cartridges?

Epson don't want you to recycle their cartridges and have invested heavily in chips they embed in some of their cartidges. The chip monitors how much ink is left in the cartridge. Even if you put more ink in, it will refuse to print until the chip is reset. This costs money and means it isnt usually as viable to recycle these cartridges as other manufacturors' cartridges although compataibles still exist for some models (www.inkcycle.co.uk sell them for some models)Why is it that stores don't recycle Epson ink cartridges?
there is no recycle value in Epson cartridges. Remanufacturers will not touch them. They can be ground down for plastic, however there is really no money in that either.





There are places that will recycle Epson cartridges (my company does) however, the only part that can be reused, is the chip, and even then there is only about a 30% chance that chip is still viable.





So really, recycling epson cartridges just isn't worth the cost of recycling. They have a commercial value of about $0.02. An HP or Lexmark cartridge has a value of about $1.Why is it that stores don't recycle Epson ink cartridges?
maybe they have protection to prevent that, cause thats where printer companies make their money.

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