Recycle Your Printer?
Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at 4:45PM
I am one who drags two separate plastic bins once a week to the curb for pickup. I put cans and bottles in the blue one, and paper products (Translation: Junk Mail) in the yellow bin. I have done this for years. I'm surprised to learn some communities in our area haven't adopted recycling yet, or the neighbors don't play along with the sorting of their trash.
I also run and ride mountain bikes in a repurposed landfill turned county park. So I understand the recycle concept and see first hand what the end results can be. Why bury unnecessary goods in a landfill or burn them into the atmosphere when we can clean and reuse them?
When it came time to discard a dying home multifunction printer, I did think ahead. Am I really going to put this in regular trash pickup, so it can become a buried segment of someone else's running or mountain biking trail? (Not my exact thought, but close)
I discovered that the major consumer electronic companies that sell home-grade printers have a very eco-friendly recycling program in place for their devices at end of life. You visit a recycling section of their website, identify your machine, and they send you a PREPAID voucher to mail the printer back to them! Yes, you're catching all of this - They pay for the return of your printer so you do not have to throw it in the trash.
I was responsible for boxing the printer and bringing it to a mail center. I had a box in my garage from a previous online order, and yes, the printer fit. A few straps of packing tape and an easy affix of the company-provided prepaid postage label and I was ready to recycle. I made a short drive to a FEDEX facility and dropped my package off for delivery. In my best millenial-speak, it left me with "all the good feels," knowing I was recycling the dead device instead of building some landfill one printer higher.
Here are the recycling links for the top 4 consumer-grade printer companies. Give this a try when your printer, scanner, etc, fails and is in need of replacement. Mother Earth says, "Thanks!"
-dm
