Buy, Use, and Dispose of Your Printer Cartridges Responsibly
At Raydian, we have an environmentally responsible approach to the supply and use of printer cartridges in South Africa. You will find that being responsible with your printing products is simpler than you think, especially if you learn a little more about the negative impact of simply discarding printer cartridges irresponsibly. Consider this – the average toner cartridge requires 3 litres of oil to manufacture, and then it can take up to 1000 years for the plastic waste product to eventually decompose. Throwing away just one printer cartridge can add just over 1 kg to our already overflowing landfill sites.
Raydian’s Environmentally Responsible Approach to Supplying Printer Cartridges
If you buy printer consumables from time to time, think about how you dispose of the used product. Printer cartridges are classified as hazardous waste by South African legislation. When you look at the global statistics, you will find that 300 million printer cartridges end up in landfill sites each year, and these figures keep rising. This means that there is the potential to reuse or recycle around 2,4 million kg of plastic on an annual basis. Although these figures include the plastic waste from printer cartridges, toners, ribbons, and drums, a large portion of the contribution comes from printer cartridges. If you think about it logically, the more we recycle and reuse these waste products, the less chance there is for printer cartridge prices to soar.
What You Can Do
It’s important to encourage your office employees to follow a more aware and responsible approach to the disposal of printer cartridges. There are several initiatives and programmes in place that can help you with returning, reusing, and recycling your empty toner and ink printer cartridges. And there they are:
- Carbon Footprint Africa – this company offers collection boxes for cartridges. Once full, they can be collected and recycled as needed. The collection of cartridges can be used for making monetary donations to charities. Companies must register for this programme.
- greenABLE – this company employs previously disadvantaged individuals to run the facility and is, in fact, the first facility in Africa that recycles printer cartridges. It is a non-profit organisation that dismantles cartridges and separates them into reusable, recyclable, and truly waste products.
- MySchool – this programme offers cartridge collection boxes to be placed in strategic locations. Once the box is full, let them know, and they will collect the cartridges and have them recycled.
Get Your Printer Cartridges at Raydian
At Raydian, we ensure that you get the best possible price for your printer cartridges and other printer consumables. We stock a range of options for all makes and models of printers. If you would like to learn more about the printer cartridges in our catalogue, simply contact us via email or telephone today.