Why use a refillable ink cartridge?

Refilling ink cartridges have been a popular way to reduce, reuse, and recycle for many people. Throwing away ink cartridges is like throwing batteries away. We all know that this is not good for the environment.

One big reason why people prefer refillable cartridges is that it is more cost effective than buying new ones. Refilling a cartridge could save you up to 60% less than a brand name ink cartridge. Most brand name companies would argue that refilled cartridges do not have the same quality. They claim that photos printed using refilled cartridge can fade quicker than their brand name counter parts. However, a study conducted by Quality Logic proved that the quality of refilled cartridges print outs are comparable to those of new cartridges.

Another reason to choose refillable ink cartridges is that brand names like HP, Canon, and Brother come out with newer printer models almost every year. Since older models are more likely discontinued, the same goes for its ink cartridge. There may be times that you will not find the same model ink cartridge for your old printer.

Not only are refillable ink cartridges more cost-effective, they are also safer for our environment. With the quality of ink improving in the recent years, the use of refillable ink cartridges are in demand

Be informed before purchasing Ink and toner cartridges

Be Informed

To the uninformed consumer purchasing toner supplies necessary to carry on with your day to day operations, understand that there’s Chinese made product in our midst that is being sold as a compatible product to compete with the OEM products in the marketplace.

What you might not know is that this product is being manufactured using illegally produced plastic cartridges and sold in our market place as a compatible.  At one time China OEM empty plastic cartridges to rebuild as compatible product, then only exploiting their own work force to build this product for what we would consider less then acceptable wages.

During the course of this era, a lot of the waste product was being dumped in areas inhabited by their general population who didn’t know any better than to have this type of thing thrust upon them.  After a considerable amount of time, it was slowly determined that all this type of waste product was contaminating their land and water table.  Populated areas were starting to have to bring in drinking water as their own became unacceptable for human consumption.  The Chinese Government stepped in and put import restrictions quotas on empty cartridges to prevent further environmental damages.

To get around the quotas, most Chinese manufactures starting making their own plastic molds to ensure the supply and demand scenarios.

Thus today the vast amount of Chinese compatible product is illegal by virtue of this fact that they never asked permission from the OEM manufacturers such as HP and Lexmark to do so.  Lexmark has been doing their due diligence to prevent this type of piracy from taking place and eventually HP will do the same.

So unless you’re paying pennies for this product, you might be short sighted in thinking you’re getting a deal.  The only companies really benefiting from this are the importers of such products, where without any investment other than some inventory, are taking advantage of a situation for nothing other than greed.

You don’t have to look very hard to see what this type of greed has led to, just go to any major retailer and try to buy an article of clothing that’s not made in some distant land, mission impossible, and the collapse of the North American textile industry.

Next time you’re buying a toner product, just check the bottom of the box to see where it’s made, even some of the large hardware manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon to grab even more margin in their supply of consumables to the end user (general public).

To the legitimate remanufacturers of North America, this is more than competition, because as caretakers of the environment we become saddled with this illegal product as empties which in turn, we have to dispose of in an environmentally responsible fashion, not to mention the money spent to do our fair share in keeping this product out of our land fill sites and possible causing irreparable damage to our piece of this planet.  Let your Conscience be your guide, for you and generations to come.