| Second life for printer cartridges |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Wednesday, 12 November 2008 | |
      
Millions of ink and toner cartridges are used by homes, businesses and public sector organisations around Australia. Once depleted, they're largely empty space and so take up a lot of room in landfill. If you drop your old cartridges into the Planet Ark box at one of the 2400-plus Australia Post, Dick Smith Electronics, Harvey Norman, Officeworks or Tandy outlets that participate in the scheme (or the one at your workplace), what happens next? The back end of the Cartridges 4 Planet Ark scheme is operated Close The Loop, a private unlisted company based in Somerton in Melbourne's northern suburbs. The company runs separate processing lines for ink and toner cartridges, but what happens to them is very similar in that the cartridges are shredded and the materials separated. Any recovered ink goes through a patented process and ends up in rollerball or fountain pens. Remember fountain pens? They're particularly green, as there's nothing to throw away - just refill the pen's bladder with ink from a bottle. The toner powder is transformed into pellets, which are used to put colour into plastics. Talking of plastics, the clean plastics and any metals recovered from the process are sold for reuse, while the remaining mixed plastics - along with some of the foam - goes into the production of Close The Loop's eWood, a wood replacement suitable for fencing, landscaping and making outdoor benches. Foam is also used in the production of spill kits that are used in industry to contain and clean up liquid spills, and (on a trial basis) in the manufacture of carpet underlay. Almost eight million items have been diverted by landfill by the Cartridges 4 Planet Ark scheme, and the largest contributor and collector (31 percent of the total) is Hewlett-Packard, a foundation sponsor since the the scheme started in April 2003. |
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