What Happens To The Printer Cartridges?
Products made from recycled Cartridges
Once there, they are had sorted and their brand and type recorded. Over 50% of the laser cartridges are sent back to the original equipment manufacturers for their re-manufacturing or component recovery programs.
The inkjet cartridges, toner bottles and drum units are processed through the patented, Australian-made Green Machine, which reduces the cartridges to smaller particles that can be more easily separated.
Inkjet cartridges are processed through another machine, which also uses patented world-first technology.
Magnets are used to remove ferrous (iron-based) metals. While eddie currents are used to remove aliuminium.
This waste stream is a complex mix of potentially valuable and/or hazardous raw materials needing state of the art equipment for safe processing and handling.
The end result of this process is the recovery of 'raw' materials. These 'secondary raw materials' are further filtered, upgraded and then used instead of virgin materials in normal manufacturing to make new products. The ultimate aim is to return the raw materials back to the original equipment manufacturer for reuse in new cartridges.
All of this is achieved with zero waste going to landfill.
- CAPA Cartridge Recycling Process Poster (6.71MB pdf file)
Details the processes which a cartridge goes through from drop-off to various final products.
Documents marked with 
may only be available in PDF format. If you don't have Adobe Acrobat (or the reader), a FREE reader is available from Adobe.
