Cartridge remanufacturing revisited

Without delving into the controversial issues on OEM vs. third party cartridge remanufacturing, I would like to talk about this recent InfoTrends report.

We know that both OEMs and third party remanufacturers are trying to collect depleted printer supplies: manufacturers want to recycle the products to meet environmental goals and block competition for brand-new cartridges, and third party suppliers want to refill and resell the cartridges. Makes sense, right? But in reality they don't take actions in line with their objectives. This research reports that less than half of all printer cartridges are recycled or reused even once by offices in the U.K. and U.S. Moreover, it seems that even the remanufacturer companies do not recycle the unusable cartridges simply because they have little resale value.

Some other data: Only half of Europe's remanufactured laser cartridges and 30% of remanufactured inkjet cartridges are recycled, and US is a slow follower with 10% of lasers and almost no inkjets recycled. Remanufacturing of cartridges is claimed to be able to reduce the demand for new cartridges by about 20%. When it comes to competition between OEM vs. third party in collection, remanufacturers collect 70% more empty toner cartridges and 700% more empty inkjet cartridges than the original manufacturers do.

Good news: although these news are not very good, remanufacturers say "in fact they would like to do more recycling, but they lack recycling systems" !!!