Keep Calm And Recycle

With Coles and Woolworths leading the way this month by no longer providing free lightweight single use plastic bags for customers, we would like to encourage all our customers at Ink Depot to become more environmentally conscientious too.

A staggering 18 million printer cartridges are thrown out by Australians each year. This results in over 5000 tonnes of material ending up in landfill and harming our land and water.

Cartridges 4 Planet Ark are helping us to win the ‘War on Waste  in Australia by presenting us with a totally complimentary course of action to recycle our used printer cartridges.

The way it works is that participating brands, currently Brother, HP, Epson, Canon, Konica Minolta, and Kyocera, spend for the collection, gathering  and recycling of their printer cartridges. They are being accountable for the cartridges they manufacture.

Participating drop off stores include Officeworks, some Australia Post stores, Harvey Norman,  JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Office National and Office Products Depot outlets. Just look out for the green bins and drop your used cartridges in.

It’s that simple.

Look out for the green bins and drop your used cartridges

And what about all the obsolete computers, printers and TVs?

The e-waste statistics for Australia are not pretty, with the bureau of statistics showing that within Australia only 1% of televisions are recycled and about 10% of computers and laptops. With Australians purchasing over 2.4 million computers each year and an incredible 13.2 million digital TV sets in the last 5 years, the electronic waste is a huge problem. Both computers and TVs are suitable for recycling because they contain a lot of hazardous substances, which need to be disposed of responsibly, and nonrenewable resources like tin, zinc, nickel and copper which, if recycled correctly, can be recovered and re-used in the production of new merchandise.

Drop your e-waste off to your nearest drop-off point

While all these facts and figures have probably got you squirming in your seat, there are organisations out there doing their best to help. TechCollect is a not-for-profit e-waste service. They offer a free pickup service to businesses who qualify due to substantial quantities of e-waste or you can drop your e-waste off to your nearest drop-off point. Click here to know your nearest drop-off point.

So, let’s all relax and recycle and remember this inspirational quote by Sydney Smith: ‘It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little – do what you can.’