Fun fact, almost 942 million ink and toner cartridges are sold each year. That’s printer ink and toner equivalent to the amount of blood in 2,260,000 people! This substantial amount of printer cartridges don’t magically disappear after use. 

It’s estimated that 80% of printer cartridges are discarded in the bin, without any recycling. This enormous amount of printer toners end up filling the landfills of the world, heaping up in a huge pile of electronic garbage.

These discarded toner cartridges have a significant impact on the environment, and not the good kind. Each laser toner cartridge is equivalent to 3.5 pounds of solid waste. It takes almost 450-1000 years for the plastics used in toner cartridges to decompose completely. During decomposition, they also emit greenhouse gases that contributes to global warming. Furthermore, each cartridge requires 5 pints of petroleum, which contributes to further depletion of the world’s petroleum resources. Even more worryingly, the ink from toner cartridges leak into the earth’s underwater reservoirs and further pollutes the environment.

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