HP has been recycling ink and toner cartridges for awhile now, but it’s hard to verify the eco-friendly claims without hard evidence. Interestingly enough, a recent article in the Sacramento Bee talks about the cartridge recycling partnership between HP and the California state government, and it openly questions the effectiveness of the program. When the partnership began, the government would send empty cartridges to HP, and in exchange, the government would accumulate points that it could use to buy brand new, energy efficient HP printers. Recycling cartridges would have three theoretical benefits in this case – it would reduce waste in landfills, decrease greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing, and save the government money on new printers that presumably reduce energy costs in the long run.
But for all the benefits, the article concludes that the program hasn’t worked in the year and a half since it started. One problem is that the recycling requires the state to send cartridges across the country to Virginia, which increases costs and emissions from transportation. According to purchasing specialists at the California Department of General Services (DGS), who were never told about the partnership with HP, refilling empty cartridges at facilities in California would be far more cost-effective and eco-friendly. The program has fallen apart little by little as its flaws have been exposed. First off, because of concerns that the points incentive was unduly influencing government purchasing decisions, DGS actually dropped it a year ago, although the state still recycles with HP. Another issue is that nearly full color cartridges were often thrown away because HP printers read that they were empty, which led to increased waste until a whistleblower got the government to switch printer models. To top it all off, very few cartridges are actually getting sent out to be recycled anyway. There’s even talk that the real reason HP is taking back empty cartridges is to keep them away from refillers and remanufacturers.
So who’s right – DGS, which advocates refilling cartridges instead of “recycling” them, or the state agencies and departments that ignored DGS to work with HP? Tom Knudson wrote the aforementioned news piece, and he clearly sides with DGS. Personally, I want to reserve judgment until someone gives me some real data and more detailed cost-benefit analysis of refilling empty cartridges versus recycling cartridges with HP. It was telling that in an interview, HP official Scott Canonico said that refilled cartridges waste paper due to lower quality, but declined to reveal the data to support his claims. Why not be transparent if you have nothing to hide? I know it’s hard to fully quantify the benefits of refilling versus recycling. But as a consumer, at least give me something more than rhetoric to consider. Apparently the public servants in California were fine with what they heard, and now it seems the Earth and the state budget are worse off for it.
(Photo via Morguefile)
