The first chapter into exploring my industry and the massive impact that it has on our environment.
Gwinnett! The following is a true account of this unethical field.
Green In Gwinnett Area GIGA encourages turning in your used laser toners and/or ink cartridges to be recycled. The are many programs available.
Print Green USA, Inc. located in Suwanee, GA has a program available to consumers.
Please email: recycle@printgreenga.com for details on how to recycle your laser toners or ink cartridges.
Please comment and I will explore your questions or your industry as well.
Lexmark and THE PREBATE:
Each quarter, Lexmark releases yet another financial statement reinforcing its “supplies-driven” profitability. It is making more dollars from the sale of cartridges than the sale of printers.
And how environmentally friendly are its programs?
Lexmark’s Prebate program (now known as its environmentally friendly “return” program) gives a discount at the time of sale if the customer agrees to return the cartridge to Lexmark, or at least agrees to not give it to a remanufacturer. So, a customer has already been rewarded for buying this “environmentally friendly” product, and any incentive to recycle it is long forgotten. When the cartridge is spent, the customer may find it inconvenient to return it to Lexmark. Still wanting to do the right thing, the customer attempts to sell or give it to a remanufacturer. The cartridge’s Prebate restrictions forbid its being remanufactured, so the preferable reuse option is foreclosed. Lexmark has testified in its lawsuit with Static Control Components that it gets back 50 percent of its Prebate cartridges, and that those cartridges are then remanufactured or recycled by Lexmark.
This begs the question: Are Lexmark’s recycling partners involved in legitimate recycling?
And what about the other 50 percent of the cartridges sold by Lexmark under the Prebate program?
They are condemned to landfills, as the Prebate restrictions mandate that they cannot be remanufactured by a third party. If a remanufacturer risks legal action by remanufacturing the Prebate cartridge, it runs into the chip problem. The chip acts as the enforcement device for the Prebate restrictions. It will determine if the cartridge has been remanufactured and will shut down the printer. Aftermarket chip solutions have been developed by several aftermarket vendors, one of whom has been sued by Lexmark for their ingenuity. Think Green Gwinnett! Start small, recycle, turn off the lights, recycle your laser toners…
To add even more insurance that the cartridge will not be remanufactured, Lexmark frequently changes the firmware in the printers through “upgrades” and during routine service maintenance. The firmware acts like a virus and renders many viable aftermarket solutions worthless.
Therefore, a Lexmark customer wanting to remanufacture the (return program) cartridge is frustrated at every turn. This is a classic bate and switch scheme.
So I beg all of you in Suwanee, Lawrenceville, Duluth, Norcross, Buford, Lilburn, Snellville, or any other area of Gwinnett County, please do the right thing and recycle your used laser toners and ink cartridges.
Stay tuned for another chapter in this tail…
Green In Gwinnett Area GIGA (Keeping Gwinnett Green and Sustainable)
and sponsor Print Green USA, Inc.
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