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Thursday
March 18, 2010 Since 1922 |
What to do with used printer cartridges
By Aaron Barbee
Contributor Published June 28, 2009 Now that I’ve opened up Cartridge World here in Baytown, I have a much better insight into the intricacies of printers and printer cartridges. I’d like to share some tidbits of information I’ve picked up along this new path of mine. Hopefully this will help people not only save money, but also help keep our local environment clean and healthy.
I was talking to a lot of people yesterday. In talking to them, I came to realize there are a lot of people that don’t know what to do with their old cartridges. Some people throw them in the garbage; which is a bad idea for our environment. The people that realize it might not be a good idea to throw them in the trash just hold on to them.
For both of these groups, the answer is to bring them by our shop in the IHOP shopping center and drop them off. We’ll recycle them onsite or send those really bad ones to a full-fledged recycling center. This will get them out of your house, keep them out of our local landfills and hopefully make everyone happier. Just realize when thrown in our landfill, these things will degrade back into oil, and oil in our ground is not a good thing.
Another topic people asked me about yesterday was: which printers are the most ink/toner effective? I told them it’s like miles-per-gallon for a car. There is a cost-per-page for printers. Just like all cars will get you from point A to B, all printers do the same thing too; they put words on paper. Getting an efficient printer is as important as getting an efficient car. Some of my customers spend more money on cartridges than they do on gas!
Clearly laser printers are the most economical. At Office Depot you can get a nice laser printer for somewhere around $90 to $120, if you know which ones to go for. There is a Brother HL-2140 and HL-2170, and an HP P1505 and P1006 all in that price range. Of course, these are black and white only printers, but they’re small and can save you a lot of money.
In terms of color printers, Office Depot has a nice HP inkjet D4360 printer. Also, I’ve said this before, but the cartridges that hold the most ink for the least amount of money are the HP88 and the HP02. If you can find a printer that takes these cartridges, you will be sitting pretty in terms of cost per page. They hold double and triple the normal amount of ink and cost the same.
Some people are asking me why I’m referring people to Office Depot as they sell ink too. I tell them I don’t sell printers and Office Depot is a good place to shop for that sort of thing. I think it’s the right thing to do, and that’s what I base everything I do on– what’s right.
Check out my Web site www.TexasComputerGuru.com for supplemental information and previous articles as well.
Aaron Barbee owns Texas Computer Guru, a local computer services company for on-site business and residential needs. He can be contacted at 281-628-5099. E-mail questions for Aaron to sunnews(at)baytownsun.com.
Contributor Published June 28, 2009 Now that I’ve opened up Cartridge World here in Baytown, I have a much better insight into the intricacies of printers and printer cartridges. I’d like to share some tidbits of information I’ve picked up along this new path of mine. Hopefully this will help people not only save money, but also help keep our local environment clean and healthy.
I was talking to a lot of people yesterday. In talking to them, I came to realize there are a lot of people that don’t know what to do with their old cartridges. Some people throw them in the garbage; which is a bad idea for our environment. The people that realize it might not be a good idea to throw them in the trash just hold on to them.
For both of these groups, the answer is to bring them by our shop in the IHOP shopping center and drop them off. We’ll recycle them onsite or send those really bad ones to a full-fledged recycling center. This will get them out of your house, keep them out of our local landfills and hopefully make everyone happier. Just realize when thrown in our landfill, these things will degrade back into oil, and oil in our ground is not a good thing.
Another topic people asked me about yesterday was: which printers are the most ink/toner effective? I told them it’s like miles-per-gallon for a car. There is a cost-per-page for printers. Just like all cars will get you from point A to B, all printers do the same thing too; they put words on paper. Getting an efficient printer is as important as getting an efficient car. Some of my customers spend more money on cartridges than they do on gas!
Clearly laser printers are the most economical. At Office Depot you can get a nice laser printer for somewhere around $90 to $120, if you know which ones to go for. There is a Brother HL-2140 and HL-2170, and an HP P1505 and P1006 all in that price range. Of course, these are black and white only printers, but they’re small and can save you a lot of money.
In terms of color printers, Office Depot has a nice HP inkjet D4360 printer. Also, I’ve said this before, but the cartridges that hold the most ink for the least amount of money are the HP88 and the HP02. If you can find a printer that takes these cartridges, you will be sitting pretty in terms of cost per page. They hold double and triple the normal amount of ink and cost the same.
Some people are asking me why I’m referring people to Office Depot as they sell ink too. I tell them I don’t sell printers and Office Depot is a good place to shop for that sort of thing. I think it’s the right thing to do, and that’s what I base everything I do on– what’s right.
Check out my Web site www.TexasComputerGuru.com for supplemental information and previous articles as well.
Aaron Barbee owns Texas Computer Guru, a local computer services company for on-site business and residential needs. He can be contacted at 281-628-5099. E-mail questions for Aaron to sunnews(at)baytownsun.com.