REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE…CHA-CHING!
Each second there are approximately 8 toners that become useless in our country. Caught up in our modern & busy worlds, I think we all tend to forget about some of the ways that we can give back. Not only will purchasing remanufactured cartridges allow us to give back to the environment, but they also allow us to give back to ourselves. Does this sound too good to be true? I think not!
What exactly do we mean by “Remanufactured”?
There are two main methods to producing recycled cartridges: remanufactured & drill & fill. Lets start off with the ancient drill & fill approach. With this method, a hole is drilled into the area where the toner is kept and the new toner is added. The hole is then sealed with a plug, and the toner is labeled “ready” for resale. This was the very first approach to recycling toners and is also the one that causes most of the horror stories of toners leaking into & ruining office machines.
Now for my favorite technique and same approach that AMO’s manufacturers use for our recycled cartridges: remanufactured. A remanufactured cartridge is an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) cartridge that has been returned to a manufacturer, sometimes via a recycling program. It is then professionally cleaned, refilled, tested and repackaged for resale. It is not uncommon for other parts, like a gear or bearing, to be replaced as well. In some cases, there’s also a special computer chip that will be replaced so that your machine will recognize the remanufactured toner. The typical toner cartridge consists of 40% plastic and 40% metal. The remaining 20% consists of foam, rubber, paper & old toner. Approximately 97% of this material is reused with this approach.
Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle.
Each year, there are over 300 million plastic toner cartridges dumped in our landfills. Pair that with the 400 million inkjet cartridges and we begin to truly understand the effects of these products on our environment. These useless, empty cartridges equate to about 450,000 tons of unnecessary waste that we are inadvertently creating every year. Did you know that it takes 3 quarts of oil to produce a new cartridge from raw materials? We all know how precious this natural resource is worth to all of us! While there is some energy used in the transportation of recycled toners, it is far less than what is used to make a new one from scratch.
Realistically we can never completely halt the waste created by our office machines. What we can do is look towards remanufacturing as a way to reduce the amount of cartridges that are put in our landfills. Can you imagine the amount of waste we can reduce over 100 years? As little as 25% of all toners are recycled in our country. We can do our part to help!
It’s all about the Benjamins!
Aside of the obvious environmental benefits of remanufactured toners, what else would motivate us to switch? How about up to a 60% savings on the #1 largest expense for companies today? These days, every penny counts, and recycled toners can offer anywhere from a 20-60 % savings over the OEMs. By the time we add the savings for switching all your machines over to remanufactured toners, it can be an astonishing amount! I have heard quite a bit of concern about remanufactured toners voiding our machine warranties. The truth is that our government has passed legislation stating that it's illegal for a manufacturer to force you to purchase certain supplies. You should have the choice to save! Give us a call and let AMO do the comparing for you. Any of our knowledgeable account managers would be more than happy to offer a comparison & savings report with any of our remanufactured brands.
Brittany Martin
Account Manager
800-420-6421 ext. 234
bmartin@goamo.com
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