There are millions of laser toner cartridges discarded in Europe every year. Despite extensive recycling campaigns the majority of these end up in landfill sites. In the UK this amounts to close on ten thousand tonnes of waste material every single year. The tragedy is that a huge proportion of this is avoidable, and could be easily rectified by the printer manufacturers if they had the desire.

It’s simple the laser cartridges are sturdy and robust, when they stop working it’s usually because of one single issue – the ink has run out. If you refill them with ink they’ll carry on printing, it’s not rocket science. In fact it’s pretty easy using a kit to refill toner cartridges, the printer companies make it harder by putting little chips on some printers to force them to stop working ( very eco-friendly of them), but even if you have a printer like this the chip can be replaced easily.

Many people routinely use their cartridges two or three times before buying a new one with no issues. The cost savings are huge by using replacement toner ink, the reduction in environmental costs just as big.