The Best Way to Recycle Cartridges

Every year Americans use and throw away more than 243 million laser and ink cartridges—contributing over 200 million pounds of non-biodegradable waste to our nation’s landfills. The real shame is that all of these cartridges can be recycled—and users can make money doing so.

Spent cartridges are valuable because the casings and many internal parts can be reused three to ten times in remanufactured cartridges. Parts that can’t be used in remanufacturing can be recycled for other uses. For example, plastic casings and other plastic parts can be granulated, then molded into weatherproof beams, planks and other building materials to construct piers, benches, boardwalks, decks and outdoor signs, just to name a few uses.

So, what’s the best way to recycle cartridges? All the major OEM (original equipment manufacturer) producers, such as HP, Canon and Lexmark, encourage users consumers to return cartridges directly to the company. In most cases, though, consumers receive no payment for doing so. Added to that—and this is a well-thought-out strategy on the part of OEM producers—returning empty cartridges directly to the OEM deprives American cartridge remanufacturers of the components needed to produce competing OEM-compatible cartridges.

A better, more-profitable way of recycling is to return your empty cartridges to us. Most cartridges have a market value that we are willing to pay for. Returning cartridges to our company sends them into the remanufacturing supply stream, ensuring that American companies can continue to produce remanufactured alternatives to higher-priced OEM products.

We can recycle your empties whether you use OEM, compatible or remanufactured cartridges—even if you don’t buy them from us. Give us a call to find out how easy and profitable cartridge recycling can be!■

New ISO Standard for Toner Cartridge Yield

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has approved a standard for measuring page yields from monochrome toner cartridges. Known as ISO/ IEC 19752:2004, the standard was developed so consumers can more objectively and accurately compare cartridge page yields. Although cartridge manufacturers are not obligated to abide by ISO standards, Canon, Epson, HP and Lexmark, who were active in helping develop the standard, have all announced their support of it.

Until now, manufacturers have chosen their own, often different, methodologies to measure average cartridge yields. The new standard clearly defines the attributes that affect yield and offers a standardized testing procedure. Rather than testing two or three cartridges on the same printer, for example, the standard requires that a minimum of nine cartridges be tested on at least three different printers. A statistical method is applied to the testing results so the final yield estimate more closely matches the average consumer experience with the cartridge.

The new standard can be used to evaluate OEM, OEM-compatible, remanufactured and refilled monochrome toner cartridges. Companies may have a third party organization conduct testing and certify conformity or they can adopt the standard for in-house testing and “self declare” their conformity. Product labeling may appear similar to the following: Average Cartridge Yield XXXX standard pages. Declared yield value in accordance with ISO/IEC 19752.

Bear in mind, however, the new standard is only intended to measure toner cartridge yield. ISO cautions, “No other claims can be made for this testing regarding quality, reliability, etc.” ■

Better Pictures From Scans

Have you noticed your scanned photographs looking less colorful than the originals? Often, scanned photos lose some of their color in the translation to a digital
image. You can “regain” that color using a photo editing program.

After you’ve scanned your photo, open it up in Adobe Photodeluxe, Photoshop or whatever photo program you have available. Look for a quality setting that allows you
to change the hue/saturation levels. Increase the saturation level by a small amount, then send the photo to print.

If the first try doesn’t achieve the result you are looking for, experiment by adjusting the saturation a bit more or less until you get what you want. Finally, make a note of the adjustment level that works best so you can apply it to other photos you scan and print in the future. ■

Twenty-pound cover-stock paper is the same thickness as 20-pound bond.

Answer: False. Different types of paper are manufactured in different standard sheet sizes (basis sizes), and manufacturers define the weight of a paper according to how much 500 basis sheets weigh. Since the pre-cut basis-size sheet of cover stock is larger than that of bond paper, a piece of letter-size bond that feels equivalent to letter-size cover stock will have a lower designated weight. So, 36-pound bond paper is about the same thickness as 50-pound cover stock, and slightly heavier than 57-pound card stock.

The paper industry has recently been moving to a system that defines paper according to the number of grams per square meter. So if your printer’s manual says it can handle a maximum paper weight of, say, 135 gsm, that applies to any type of paper – laser, card or cover stock. ■

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tips on printing and environmental news.

Printing a whole Web page wastes ink if you only want a hard copy of some of the content. Here’s an easy way to print selectively.

Place the cursor at the beginning of the text or pictures you want, then hold down the left mouse or track-pad button and drag the cursor to the end of your selection. Release the button. Left click on the File menu, then on Print. In the Print menu, change the Page Range from All to Selection, then click Print.

If the selection appears in color but you only need to have it in black, you can conserve your color ink cartridge by changing the color option to Black Only before printing.

With more people using handheld devices to conduct business away from the office, there’s an increasing need to print documents on the road, too. HP has come to the rescue with the Deskjet 450wbt wireless mobile printer—a small, high-performance printer that offers photo-quality resolution and full range of wired and wireless connectivity options.

At just 4.2 pounds and with a battery that prints up to 350 pages per charge, the 450wbt is a great traveling companion. It’s cover converts to a 45-sheet feeder tray that can handle a variety of media types and sizes. Print speeds are quick too—up to 9 pages per minute black, 8 ppm in color.

The 450wbt is able to receive jobs from select Bluetooth wireless–enabled PDAs and mobile phones, or you can print using Fast Infrared from other mobile devices, including digital cameras, Pocket PCs and notebooks. It also comes with USB and parallel ports.

To find out more about this capable open-road side-kick, give us a call!