Recycling Ink Cartridges

A long-time annoyance for me with inkjet printing is the environmental impact of using consumables such as ink cartridges. Ink cartridges are a complicated mix of computer chips, heavy metals, electronics, plastic, and other materials and generally cannot be recycled at traditional recycling facilities. It is estimated that less than half of ink cartridges are recycled, and over 375 million cartridges per year end up in landfills in the US alone.

One desirable solution to this issue would be to use reusable ink cartridges. Alas, here in the US, none of the manufacturers of printers provide such cartridges. Some third party ink providers do provide reusable cartridges, but many printers (including myself) prefer to use OEM inks provided by the manufacturer.

So, how to recycle these things? Retailers like Staples do recycle cartridges, even ones that they do not sell, but I really have no idea what happens to giant Epson P9000 cartridges like I use — I would not be surprised if unusual cartridges such as these end up in a landfill.

Luckily, the three big printer manufacturers provide a recycling program for ink cartridges. Epson recycles both printers and cartridges —and will pay for shipping for printers themselves, but not the cartridges. Canon has a great recycling system and provides free shipping labels for exhausted cartridges, as does HP.

Non-Profit and Environmental Discounts

I now offer a 40% discount on printing work for environmental non-profits and causes. I also offer a 20% discount on printing services for any non-profit organization or charitable cause. Please contact me with any questions or for more details!

Green Printing: On Paper Rolls

If you are someone who makes prints larger than 17”x22”, you probably often use roll paper. On my printer, I can use rolls up to 44” in size, allowing me to create very large prints, such as 40”x60”, and very long prints (I think my record is about 25 feet long).

Independent of the chosen paper, the packaging of roll paper has an environmental impact. Most papers I’ve used include the long roll of paper wound around an inner core tube and encased in plastic. Two roll holders help the wound roll fit in the protective cardboard box. You can see the box, inner tube, and plastic in the picture on the right, and the roll holders in the picture below.

Until recently every roll I’ve used has had essentially the same packaging with minor variations, but I’m happy to report that Canson Infinity has taken important first steps in reducing the use of plastic in their materials. In recent rolls I’ve noticed the traditional plastic paper roll holders have been replaced by cardboard ones (see below). Thank you Canson Infinity for taking this step!

Typical packing material for a roll of inkjet printing paper

Kudos also to Canson Infinity for being one of the many manufacturers making 50’ rolls of paper. Hahnemühle makes lovely papers and I happily use them, but their 39’ rolls result in a 20% or so increase in the use of packing materials.

Note on recycling: Where I live, I can recycle all of these components except for the inner core (which is burned by our town facility). Given that most “recyclable plastic” is not actually recycled, I find cardboard greatly preferable.

New Canson Infinity roll holder on the left, random examples of plastic ones on the right

Nickelson Editions, now with 100% solar!

We’ve just expanded our solar array, making our home (and my home studio used for Nickelson Editions) 100% powered by solar energy over the year, including hot water and heating and our new electric vehicle.

Way back in January 2020 I posted about how I was going to start talking about environmentally-friendly printing (The Environmental Print Studio)…and, well, much happened right after that which caused a bit of delay in this series. But I am back on the case so I hope to start posting more soon here on this blog and our my new Environment page on this website.

The Environmental Print Studio

I’ve become keenly interested in how to make my print studio more environmentally-friendly, and as I’ve dug deeper I have come to realize the complexity of the subject. What kind of paper you use and where it comes from, how you power your equipment, the size and nature of ink cartridges, the use of recycled materials, how many waste prints you have, and so on — all of these factor in to the sustainability and impact of inkjet printing.

I’ll be posting here as I explore the subject, so stay tuned!