Ink Cartridges

tintoys · 19 December 2006 at 5:34PM

For the past two years the school has been paid by Cartridge World for recycling cartridges bought in by the kids with no obligation. This scheme ended in July unfortunately, losing £100pa to school funds. Since then we have looked at a couple of similar companies but they are very labour intensive and volunteers to do the job are few and far between. It has been concluded that if a simple scheme cannot be found then we will discontinue collecting the cartridges after Xmas. I have been asked to find a charity who might take waht we have collected off our hands before they go to the council skip.

If anyone has any info on a simple scheme I'd be very pleased to hear from them or details of any charity that might want the cartridges.

Thanking you in advance

Justie · 19 December 2006 at 5:51PM

anywhere that sells refilled cartridges would be a good place to start - a quick look online and there's places like https://www.inkcycle.co.uk who pay up to £5 per cartridge or https://www.cartridgesave.co.uk/recycling/index.html have a schools scheme but I'm not sure if they pay. There are also various charities who take them but it depends if you want to make money or just use it as a charity/ recycling project for the school... Your local council may already have a scheme that you can be part of - there seem to be quite a few that are coming up just on a basic google search. Sorry but I don't have any experience of any of them to say how easy or otherwise they are though.

arkonite_babe · 19 December 2006 at 5:53PM

I found this link through Google:
http://www.gtrecycling.com/emptycartridges.htm

I used one at work a few years back, but the name escapes me at the mo, if I recall it, I will edit it in

tintoys · 19 December 2006 at 6:11PM

I knew I could rely on MSE to come up with some answers!

I've now looked at your suggested sites and will be investigating the options after Christmas. The hope is to continue to get a small return for the cartridges, fundraising is hard enough at the best of times.

Any further suggestions from MSE will be well received.

Edna_Bucket_2 · 8 January 2007 at 1:39PM

I have used these people in a small way in the past:

http://www.empty-inkjet-cartridges.com/

They say that they will collect from you if you have more than 25 to pick up.

My only caveat is that when I've used them in the past I note that I never get the 100% full price paid as there are always a number of cartridges that are deemed to have "failed" the test of whether they can be re-used.

I'm not technical and I don't want to libel the company but I have wondered how accurate this is - the cynic in me can easily see that a company could (if it wished) keep its margins up if a certain percentage always "failed"!

I'd love to hear views from others better qulaified to comment on that!