What to Do with Empty Printer Cartridges that Cannot be Recycled

Every year, millions of printer cartridges are dumped as waste and add to landfills. If this problem isn’t addressed, we’ll soon see ourselves knee-deep in empty printer cartridges, literally! But while it’s perfect sense to practice proper printer cartridge recycling, there are some printer ink cartridges that cannot be recycled anymore. Remember that a printer cartridge can only be reused or recycled for about ten times and then it can’t be used for printing anymore.

A huge problem then arises: what can we do with empty printer cartridges, which can no longer be recycled or reused? Recycling centers and printer manufacturers won’t accept them and putting them in the garbage will only add to our growing landfills. Well, there are ways to avoid throwing these empty printer cartridges away. All you need is a little elbow grease and a lot of imagination. Below are some fun projects to help you reuse printer cartridges in creative ways.

1. Make colorful paperweights. Every home office or workplace could use a paperweight. Paint the empty printer cartridges in your favorite color. You can even incorporate funky designs such as flowers or your initials. You can now use them as a simple paperweight or as decoration for your office desk.

2. Create various Christmas décor. Christmas is over, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make décor to prepare for this year’s holidays. This is a fun way to practice cartridge recycling. You can even get your family in on the project. Prepare various paints of different Christmas colors such as gold, silver, red and green. Paint the empty printer cartridges with these colors and stick them together to form unique wreaths, a desktop Christmas tree or even a small lantern.

3. Add the soothing sounds of a toner cartridge wind chime to your home. Use an empty toner cartridge to act as a base for a wind chime. Simply attach recycled items, such as used printer drums, empty pen printer cartridges or wooden blocks onto the toner cartridge with strings. Hang this near a window and voila—a nice, eco-friendly wind chime!

4. Make a funky lamp out of used printer cartridges. Choose printer cartridges that have bright, fun colors (you can try Epson cartridges). Open the empty cartridges using a screwdriver. Use high-impact polystrene heat-shielded foil strips to line the inside of the printer cartridge where the bulb will be. Place a low-wattage bulb inside. It’s advisable to ask a handyman to help you with these. You can stick several of these lit cartridges to create a circular lamp. Or you can stick one on a stand to make a desk lamp. Remember to keep these lamps away from carpeting and never place objects on top of these printer cartridge lamps.

5. Use empty printer cartridges to make fun refrigerator magnets. Let your creativity loose and paint printer cartridges with your favorite colors. You can even use other items make these look more interesting. Buy pieces of magnets from your hardware store. Stick these magnets onto the empty cartridges using strong glue. Go wild and stick them on your refrigerator.

It’s true what they say about one man’s garbage being another man’s treasure. With a little paint and a lot of imagination, you can help the earth and hone your creativity by thinking of different printer cartridge projects. So, the next time you find yourself with a bagful of empty printer cartridges, think twice before you throw them in the trash. Let the five easy projects above help you save the earth and prevent cartridges from filling up landfills.

Printer Ink Cartridges

Disclaimer

PrintCountry offers a wide range of replacement cartridges, generic printer supplies, remanufactured and recycled printer inkjet cartridges for various brands like HP.com , Dell.com, Epson.com, BrotherUSA.com, Lexmark.com, Samsung.com, Canon.com and other brands less known than HP, Epson, Brother, Dell like Pitney Bowes, Minolta, Mita, Kodak printers. All brand names mentioned on this page are used for demonstrative purposes only. PrintCountry is not associated, affiliated or connected with. At PrintCountry.com besides offering deep discounted warehouse prices and online shopping offers and promotions for compatible toner cartridges, replacement printer ink cartridges, you can also find printer reviews about the most popular, best rated, newest printers, coupons and promos for other printing equipment manufacturers, do it yourself guides from friendly kid projects using your printer to great gift ideas using things like photo paper and your printers features. Whether you would like to buy your printer supplies online at discount prices, or save a bunch on cheap ink cartridges without sacrificing from quality prints, we hope you will find our website a good resource & guide to your print supply shopping needs.

Email Exclusives

All brand names and logos mentioned on this page are used for demonstrative purposes only.
These brand names are registered trademarks of their individual parent companies.