Recently last month, Hewlett-Packard Company - HPQ, expanded their recycling options that was previously being offered to their valued customers. HP printer loyalist might be familiar with the company's widely known recycling program called HP Planet Partners. Proudly touted as the best, not particularly sure if it's the worlds best to claim, perhaps one of the most outstanding program that offers a closed-loop recycling process for print cartridges. Just to give you a hint, since HP started the Planet Partners program, more than half a billion print cartridges have been recycled. Imagine how many spent and used cartridges were reused, resulting to the production of recycled laser toner cartridges and ink cartridges.

According to the news from HP Channel, the company collaborated with some of the most known print and office supply retailers including Staples, Makro, Dixons and El Corte Ingles. Across the countries of Europe,Middle East and Africa, they started expanding the recycling program's collection network. Reaching far beyond its limitations before, it is indeed a commending endeavor for the company to aim for additional 9,000 outlets worldwide. This goal to raise the number of retail outlets will soon became a success, and before we even know it, our cartridges had been a part of it by then.

While other countries including Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France, the Hewlett-Packard company already started working with one of their recycling partner there. The AFB (Air Force Base) Group, an IT recycling company that has been a partner of HP for quite a long time. They participated in collecting, sorting as well as sending the post-consumer waste they gathered back to HP to undergo recycling. As a matter of fact, AFB Group which is based in Australia, from 200 business establishments they successfully gathered approximately 10,000 used printer toner cartridges.

Keeping those spent cartridges out of the landfills is not an easy task, and as a consumer it is our responsibility to take actions and participate on such great programs. We may not be able to save thousands or billions of cartridges in a year, but every small contribution we made means a lot.

I guess a lot of printer users worldwide would agree with this. Since they're reusing components of used printer toner and ink cartridges to produce new original supplies. How about they lower the price of them right? Considering that they don't actually used fresh natural resources and materials, why not cut down the price of their products. If an original cartridge that is made out of virgin materials has the same price as a recycled cartridge, how is it justifiable then?

While summer is not yet over, I find it fitting to give you guys another nifty project that you can surely do over and over not only for this season, but for so many occasions as well. Our project this time requires some tinkering skills and a few basic knowledge about the materials we will be using so as to avoid hazards. Aside from recycled printer toner cartridges and ink cartridges, we'll also use this special powder called zinc sulfide. It is a chemical inorganic compound specially use to produce glow in dark powder that creates electroluminescent light effect.

Luminous Ink With Zinc Sulfide

To further explain, zinc sulfide is commonly in a transparent form and has been used as a pigment for years. When this powder is combined with an activator (another chemical), it can produce glows in different colors. Through several applications resulting to various chemical reactions, zinc sulfide became a widely used powder for luminescent materials.

Back to our project, in order to create glowing printouts you need to make your own glow in the dark inks. Please be reminded that I'm not promoting ink refilling with this post, just do this at your own risk. Since I already mentioned it, yes you'll be doing the dirty job of refilling ink cartridges, sounds fun isn't it? But before anything else, start mixing your glowing ink. Here's the ratio, for every 3 tsp of formulated ink, add 1/4 tsp of luminous zinc sulfide, stir until the mixture is even and heat it inside a microwave 20-sec at the least.

Fill The Cartridge With Luminous Ink

Now prepare the cartridge and syringe, also cover your hands with gloves to protect yourself from skin contact with the mixture. In order to refill the empty cartridge, you have to remove the label on top to reveal the holes from where you can pump inks. Fill the syringe until halfway full with the glowing ink you prepared, then inject the needle inside the refill hole and push the ink inside. This can messy and tricky, don't make yourself used to it, just be sure you do it properly. I reckon that once you find it easy to refill a cartridge, you'll soon do it with the print supplies you have thinking that it's much cost-efficient. Again, let me remind you that I'm not promoting such thing, it's just that the process is part of our project.

Testing The Result

Once you're done filling the cartridge with the glowing ink, you may or may not place the sticker/label back on top, but I suggest you try to, such that it may avoid the ink from drying up quickly. Then re-install the cartridge to the printer you intend to use, and run a test page to see if the result is fine enough. Images are good samples to print, wait for the printout and if it's pleasing enough expose it to a very bright light for more than 1 minute or so. After that, take the image to a dark room where you'll be able to see how wonderful your images glow in the dark. If I may add, you may also use black light if you have one, it works best.

Take note that the glowing effect will not last for quite a long time, it depends on the light source where you exposed it. But basically once the glow runs out, just charge it back to a bright light for a minute and your image will soon glow.

Printing is generally a part of peoples everyday lives especially those who are in a very busy working environments. Others are very much concern of the expense their printer generates from replacements supplies, while there are those who don't care at all. We're providing solutions that promote environment friendly printing, from which it includes educating those who don't care to start caring from now on. One effective way of reducing printing cost is by setting the printer to print only with black inks.

Print your files and documents using only the black cartridge will certainly reduce the overall cost of printing. Whilst it requires you to buy black ink cartridges more often, this doesn't mean it'll bring much trouble with the expense. Just so you know, black ink tanks are less costly than those colour tanks, that's why it is more wise to get a spent black ink rather than any of the colour ones.

Econo-mode or draft or black-only printing, whatever you call it, they're all quite the same, a printer feature that restricts the machine to print only in black. It's economical indeed, especially for those who have a printer that can still work even with a single cartridge installed which is the black. Do you know why it's not ideal to print without the black cartridge and let the colour cartridges do the printing? Once you send print jobs to the machine and there's no black ink to pull through, the printer will make use of what's available, and will combine the three colors to create a dark ink equivalent in replace for black.

In the same manner, the drawback of using only the black may result to some odd quality prints, perhaps a bit dull or lacks vividness. Gray-scale printing is what they commonly called it, since the output in Econo-mode are less clear or more close to gray shade. For this reason, it is advisable to use black ink cartridge alone only if the file you're about to print is not that important or is not intended for office use. Surely you don't want your reports and graphs to look less professional than it should be.

HP and Epson printers are two of the most prominent brands that support black ink or Econo-mode printing. It lets you save inks/toners by printing in draft mode, as mentioned earlier. If your primary reason is to save your printer's consumables, toner-saving mode is expected to consume 40-50% less inks/toners with every print. That would be enough to extend the life of your cartridges or possible draw out more prints from them. Additionally, if you prefer more savings, why not opt for eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges which retailers are selling for half the price of original counterparts. Just don't use let the price tricked you, sometimes we're not aware that our eagerness to save compromises the quality we may get.

Many of us view printer supplies as disposable materials, though they are indeed disposable, for a fact they're also recyclable. Breaking down these consumables or disassembling them will be enough to reused the components which still have use. When cartridge recycling process was developed, they thought of it as a way to cut down the overall cost of manufacturing printer supplies. Now it is considered as a primary method of disposing printer cartridges and preventing these products from ending up in the landfills. The world of recycling seems to offer a better way of getting rid of our own waste in a green and much environment friendly manner.

Various organizations, profit and non-profit, either ways they promote and offer recycling services for any individuals or group that would like to have their post-consumer waste be recycled. They educate people about the proper ways and solutions they may use to get rid of their empty and used printer cartridges without resulting any harm to the environment. What are the items they can recycle, how are they recycled and how can they send their waste for recycling purposes. Getting rid of our e-waste isn't that hard as you think of, there are certain strategies you need to learn to be part of the recycling world.

To eliminate having land-fillers, first we need to stop viewing them as one, then find a way to reuse or recycle them. These resources might help you understand how things work and what are the things related in recycling printer cartridges.

Benefits Of Recycling
Learn facts and benefits of recycling ink and toner cartridges. Also it provides a brief information about the process of recycling empty printer consumables so we can get recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges.

EvolveRecycle Recycling Facts
Aside from the services they offer, there's this post that gives an ample of known recycling facts for almost all sorts of electronic gadgets and devices.

What Can I Recycle
ThinkGreen provides information and solutions on how we can conserve natural resources by letting you learn when and what items to dispose and to recycled.

Disposing Ink and Toner Cartridges
This one gives a few options for you to consider when planning to get rid of your printer supplies the eco-friendly manner. You'll learn ways to earn money by simply participating to a recycling organization or build your own recycling program and have a better role to play on protecting the environment.

Don't wait for your printer waste to pile up until you think of a way on how to get rid of them properly. To help you with your problem, here are some of the most eco-friendly way of disposing your used and empty cartridges where you can even earn cash.

Send it back to your respective manufacturer is one of the most and common way to properly dispose printer-post-consumer wastes. Notice that whenever you purchase replacement cartridges from branded manufacturers, they often include a special envelope inside the packaging. This indicates that the product can be returned once empty or used, and the envelopes you kept will make use by then. Mailing the cartridges back to the manufacturer requires either a box or a seal pack where you'll put the items. Additionally, most big names in the print industry such as Hewlett-Packard, Epson and Dell, these companies are willing to provide 5-10% rebates to all customers who will participate in their recycling programs. No one should worry about the shipping or mailing costs, as they will shoulder the expenses for you.

A non-profit organization that gladly accepts used printer cartridges as donations is one of the perfect choices you have. Globally, there are a few of these organizations that you should be familiar with if your planning to support such one. Local groups are also a good choice, they receive cash or monetary donations from different manufacturers for every recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges they provide.

If charitable works are none of your business, and you certainly need cash in exchange of your empty cartridges, then might as well sell it directly. Since there are non-profit organizations, of course they have a counterpart. Consider it their business, accepting certain amounts of used cartridges from people who are in need of cash. These option, unlike the drop box recycling programs of many branded manufacturers, you can't just give them  three or four cartridges. Perhaps 10 items maybe good enough, but that's the least, a box of used ink or toner cartridges is more likely sufficient. With this option, you have to wait much longer to gather enough until you reached at least their minimum requirement.

Now if you're not concern of any money, and that you just really want to get rid of your post-consumer waste, then how about you give a visit to any Office Depot or Staples branches near you. These two stores are now accepting used ink and toner tanks for your convenience. Since they'll be taking your own garbage, neither of you will give or receive any money. Just simply take the items with you, visit their store and find the bins marked with cartridge recycling logos. If you can't find any, look for a personnel or go straight to their customer service to ask for help.

If you want a bigger role to help the environment, you may consider setting up your own recycling program in your neighborhood. It isn't hard to spread the news around that you're accepting used and empty printer cartridges, then place a recycling bin just around an accessible corner where anyone get drop their items. This sounds absurd, but come to think of it, once the bin is full of plastic ink and toner tanks, you can sell it in exchange for cash. Wouldn't that be nice, helping your neighborhood get rid of their junks, while you're getting some small amount from gathering their waste?

Although some would not agree that using refilled printer cartridges has a lot more of disadvantages than any advantage there is that it can provide. It is still a fact that by using such products may potentially damaged a printer with several risks which might cause irreparable damages. The same thing with refilling, no matter how skilled or knowledgeable you are when it comes to refilling printer cartridges, there's no such guarantee that it'll work at least below par compared to its OEM counterparts. Unlike with using recycled cartridges, a printer is less vulnerable to damages or even far from serious problems that any user may encounter with using refilled consumables.

Refilling a single cartridge requires a tough process, hence it's difficult to produce hundreds of refills with all that having such good quality. It's not just about the knowledge to drill a hole nor pouring the liquid ink inside a cartridge that could suffice. Try to drill a plastic container, notice that there are bits of plastic that can get stuck inside the container. Pour a liquid inside a container through a small hole, no matter how gentle you pour it, air bubbles may appear. With these two issues regarding the process of refilling, these may cause uneven prints, blotches and streaks. Worse, even if the cartridge was recognized by the machine as a new replacement, do you think the ink inside would flow normally once the bits of plastic got stock on the nozzles? Plus, considering that you alone refilled the cartridge, once your experiment doesn't work out as what you expected, how can you get your money back?

Cartridge leaks, print failures due to malfunctioning cartridge, dried inks, clogged print heads, these are just some of the common issues you might possibly encounter when you use refilled cartridges. Instead of saving money, you end up wasting it by buying refill kits, plus the time you spent with its process, all went to nothing.

The good thing about opting for recycled cartridges aside from they're environment friendly and cost you less than 50% over branded cartridges. These consumables comes from a retailer, thus there's someone you can blame for any problems that the product comes with, plus you may request to return your money for a faulty cartridge. Another note worthy to mention about recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges is that, the third-party manufacturer replaces obsolete components as well as the chip from each cartridges. Hence it is not always necessary for the user to reset the machine whenever installing the cartridge. Additionally, recycled cartridges can last far better than refilled ones, and produce more printouts with better quality and yield.

With the effort to bring forth a new paperless office printing system, Toshiba introduced an essentially new kind of MFP printer, it uses laser technology hence it requires toners to produce printouts. Unlike any other lasers that works with the typical toners we've been used to, Toshiba's e-STUDIO 306LP/RD30 printer can create prints through a special toner that can be erased.

It is a system though, the printer is paired with a unique device which they preferred to be called as the "Eraser". Once a printout produced from the RD30 printer has no use, erasing the print from the paper can be done by feeding it to the Eraser, which will then erase the prior document. It's not actually much of a task to do, since the benefit you'll get from it is much more worth it.

Based on a recent release, paper sheets can be reused for as much as five times the regular printing. One of the key features of the Eraser is that it can detect a page that has been erased up to its maximum limit, thus separating it from the others and sending it to a bin. Additionally, if you have a FriXion pen from Pilot, or if you don't know what it is, well it's the pen version of this technology. The FriXion ballpoint pen has thermo-sensitive gel ink which can also be erased repeatedly without damaging the paper. Say, you have a printout from the e-STUDIO 306LP/RD30 printer and you want to put a specially hand written note on it, basically that's possible since the Eraser can also remove the ink from a FriXion pen.

According to British Standards Institute, a globally known national standard organization, about 57% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emmision has been greatly reduced. Plus it generally minimize paper usage by up to five times.

The toner present in its cartridges is neither black nor color, it is actually distinguished as blue. It performs and deliver outputs in a similar manner, except that the printed text or images can be erased by applying heat. In any case you need to keep a copy of the file from the sheet before you erase it, the device can be configured to scan the existing print from a page and save it to an archive location before running through the process.

It will certainly reduce the office's carbon footprint emission, paper waste, expense, and most of all, it teaches any working environment to become more environmentally responsible. Well, the system is not yet available to the market and is expected to be released before the end of this year. So for the mean time, to help you make a greener way of printing, consider using recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges with your printer to help save the environment. Also, you'll not only contribute to the sustainability, but you also get to save more from using eco-friendly printer consumables and supplies.

Since it's summer, why not keep yourself busy with environment friendly and fun learning craft activities that will improve your green way of living. It's pretty usual that after school days, you'll find a lot of projects, research papers, things and stuffs from school piling up in your room. Instead of dumping it all into the bins or wait for the garbage truck to pick them up, why not make use of all those materials for recycling purposes, that sounds much better. To ensure that our own waste wouldn't end up in the landfills, move and start digging inside the box, check all those things you have and see which can still be reused.

Aside from those stuffs, recall those paper works and printouts you've made during the school year, set aside the paper materials we'll have a different thing to do with those. What you should be gathering are the printer consumables you spent for all those term papers, researches and printed materials. Here are some of the nicest and niftiest recycling activities that you can do with old and used printer cartridges. Let's bring out the creativity within you, and show your friends how artistically you can be.

Starting from the very easy and simple yet fancy project, let's call it as Project1 or the Cartridge Paperweights. Everyone can use it especially in the office, make as many as you can and give it to your mom, dad, brothers, sisters, friends, or anyone that may need it. With the use of some adhesives and glittering accessories, you can embellish the empty cartridges with anything you want. But before doing the fun part, first you have to get dirty cause you need to clean the cartridges and fill it with sand. You can't call it a paperweight if it literally doesn't have any weight,right? Once done decorating the cartridge, glue it into a cardboard or a small piece of wood to serve as its base so it can stand. You now have your very own paperweight out of recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges.

Rank two on our list of the easiest recycling project are the ref-magnets. Instead of buying why not make your own, so you'll have a more customized design and decorations. With Project2, you have to purchase small magnets which will be placed at the back of the cartridges. You can either paint or let the cartridges as it is, but make sure their clean,since kids might reach out of those and nibble it.

Third on our list is called the Family Picture Frame. This one's a bit tricky, since you have to collect ink tanks of different sizes and thickness. You'll have a problem if you only have one class of cartridge at home, but I've got a work-around. Get some glue and stick two cartridges to make its width double than the usual, then repeat the process but now make it three pieces of cartridges. Once the glue completely dried out, arrange the cartridges in a cardboard with a size enough to hold your prepared cartridges. Paste those cartridges into the cardboard but don't glue the cartridges near to any cartridge with same thickness. Let the cartridges stick in place, once they're perfectly glued to the board, cut pictures of the members of the family and paste it randomly to the cartridges, then allow it to dry.

Here's the hardest and perhaps will keep your hands at work literally. Prepare cartridges of the same sizes and types, clean and remove the labels so it'll have the translucent effect. Now get a wire and make a hole at the bottom side of each cartridges -- from these holes you'll shoot the wire. It's like creating a bracelet of used cartridges, think of the cartridges as the beads and the wire as the string. If you want a lamp with height, glue two layers of it to make a tall lamp. It can also work as a chandelier, just tie a wire on to the top cartridges or the lid and hand it on a chain that can support its weight.

When it comes to printing one must be ready with the expected and unexpected expenses that may arise along with maintaining a printer. At first you might not be able to notice this but actually purchasing such device will not count as the beginning, but rather by the time you have to get a replacement once the initial supplies run empty. A customer who owns a printer for such a long time is practically aware of how expensive print consumables can be. In fact, they said that if try to pile or sum up all the receipts and cost you spent over a year from buying cartridges, you might just drop your jaw. That's where the idea came from, that -- you would rather get a new printer that comes with a set of free cartridges instead of purchasing a set of replacements.

One of the simplest and ideal way to considerably make the expense lower is to start using recycled printer supplies. These products are definitely not associated to those substandard consumables. Compatible cartridges are also different from recycled supplies, nor it's not even related to refilled cartridges, not at all.

Recycled printer cartridges are made from used or empty ink and toner consumables which are basically reused to manufacture new original supplies. Once a cartridge runs empty on ink or toner, it's just the consumable inside it that was spent. While the components are still reusable and in good working conditions, manufacturers along with their recycling programs accept returned supplies such as cartridges and even old printers. Some organizations would be more glad to give rewards to anyone who participate in their programs by simply returning their printer's spent cartridges or again even the machine itself once it reaches it's end-of-life.

Post-consumer cartridges are not the only ones that undergo recycling process, paper products particularly the supplies we used for printing purposes can also be recycled. Whether you're using a printer in the office or at home, wouldn't it be more convenient in your part if your device is using cost-efficient and environment friendly recycled toner cartridges or ink cartridges, plus those recycled paper materials?

Again, it's not hard to switch to green printing practices and it wouldn't break the bank or cost you more, than keep on using highly expensive replacements. The market has a lot to offer, but remember although there's an abundant of supplies to choose from, cheaper doesn't always mean ideal and you have to learn how to dig inside a mixed bag. It's either you fall into the right retailer or end up wasting your money from fraud manufacturers.

Some people used to have collectible items, others are just making it a habit to keep something then eventually it became a collection. Whatever your collection may be, it can be a nifty hobby to collect valuable things and stuffs that define who you are. Our today's collection isn't something unusual to many, indeed these are just simple things to consider, but rarely given importance.

Actually this collection or rather list isn't new, you can find more of it by simply browsing the net, but I prefer to have my own list. PrintGreen promotes environment friendly resources, topics and ideas, hence our collection should relate to eco friendly stuffs as well. You can't always get to read a post about recycled products, while politics or some sort of it are very common elsewhere. Perhaps you could spare a moment of your time reading this shortlist.

Recycled Paper Materials
In its early times, recycled paper products are basically costly for a reason from which I'm not very particular. But let's live the past, nowadays such materials are of low prices and even better. Let's be thankful to the market competition, recycled paper materials became less expensive and more long lasting.

Recycled Pencils
If you think that recycling is just for papers, then what can you say with these recycled pencils which are made from reused materials? There were variations like pencils made from magazine materials, scrap woods, and other biodegradable components.

Recycled Ballpens
I kinda like this one, the Bottle-2-Pen ballpens from Pilot. They're not just made from recycled PET bottles or drinking bottles, they also have the same texture and grip similar to an actual water bottle. Aren't they look nice, unless you don't want to have a fancy and a bit bulky ball-pen to use for school.

Recycled Notebooks
Since there are recycled paper materials available, manufacturers tried producing notebooks and binders through such materials. They're practically more efficient, with covers that are really sturdy and customizable. Aside from notebooks, there are also notepads made from recycled materials. Actually, making your own recycled notebook is very much easy, just gather those old notes of yours and see if there are blank pages which can still be used. Remove the spring or the stitch, whatever binds it, then compile all the blank pages and stitch it back, and there you have it.

Recycled Printer Cartridges
Printing is a staple task, hence we should be mindful of our own practices. Using original cartridges may result to an extensive recurring expense, and one possible way to turn the tide is by opting for less costly printer consumables, and these are the so called recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges.