Reminder for clients this Earth Day: that old inkjet is e-waste, not trash

Posted by peterheinicke@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 44 comments

Every year around spring cleaning time I get calls from clients who just tossed a printer or UPS battery in the dumpster and are now wondering if they have a problem.

Short answer: yes — in Illinois (and most states) it's illegal to dispose of electronics in regular trash. Printers, monitors, laptops, batteries, anything with a circuit board qualifies.

Easy options I tell clients about: Best Buy and Staples take most items for free, no purchase required. Kane County holds periodic drop-off events. Batteries Plus takes rechargeable and UPS batteries at no charge. Manufacturer take-back programs (HP, Canon, Epson) also exist.

Wrote it up as a quick reference for clients: https://www.pcmethods.com/it-support-blog/why-cant-i-throw-out-old-inkjet-printer

What do you use for client e-waste disposal? We sometimes haul gear during service calls but curious what others are doing at scale.

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Hashrunr@reddit

Also, if you buy HP toner, they come with a return label for old cartridges. You can slap that label on a huge box full spent cartridges and they take it.

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Ivanow@reddit

The reason they are doing this (unless there are some local laws regarding this) is that there were companies that were refilling spent HP cartridges with fresh toner, and selling them as refurbished, without breaking older DRM - HP wants those toner casings off the market, not because they care about environment, but so that they can sell you a new one.

Also, see recent class-action settlement: Mobile Emergency Housing v. HP Inc., No. 5:20-cv-09157-SVK

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DoctorOctagonapus@reddit

And because they're now getting old casings back, they can re-use them for lower production costs and a fatter profit.

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CatDiaspora@reddit

Keep the receipt for the shipping label, and after a week or so when you have a free moment, track it. If it's anything like my experience, it will disappear somewhere along the way to its destination.

Totally unrelated question: where do you suppose those remanufactured toner cartridge companies acquire their empties from?

Hmm...

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Hashrunr@reddit

I always assumed those carts go to re-manufactures, but I never looked into it. Been instructing helpdesk staff to use them through multiple orgs over the past 15+yrs. My current team has been packing all toner, not just HP, into those boxes with our helpdesk info as the return address. Never had any returned.

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CatDiaspora@reddit

Oh I never had any returned, either.

It's interesting to think about though, isn't it. Until I suggested it here, nobody ever thinks to track a used toner cartridge on its way back to the manufacturer, right? But what if someone working at a shipping facility along that route realized that? They'd know that they're seeing all these used toner cartridges go by, going to one specific return address with a specific return label, and no one is bothering to check that they get to their destination. I wonder what ... unorthodox ... opportunities that person might realize they have...

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Bogus1989@reddit

i once had an ironwolf pro disk die in my personal NAS. was under warranty so i had seagate overnight ship replacement with my credit card required for liability purposes. two months later, there was a $400 charge because that drive was charged in my account.

That’s when it hit me. I sent the wrong drive. I called Seagate and told him I was sending the right one.. absolutely no idea whatsoever what the hell happened to the actual good drive I sent them 🤷‍♂️

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Skyshaper@reddit

The single purpose of those return slips is to prevent their toner cartridges getting in the hands of remanufacturers.

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redittr@reddit

HP used to provide us with a branded box to put in the retail area of our store for used toners quite a while ago. They would then provide a freight label whenever we told them it got full.

They phoned one day to complain that there were non hp toners sent in the shipment. Then when it happened again they stopped collecting them from us.

Working46168@reddit

this is spam

Smith6612@reddit

For client e-Waste disposal? It really depends on the volume. There are technology remarketing companies who will soft through your trash, sell what's good, and e-Waste the rest. I've used Belmont Recycling (Sipi) in the past. There are smaller firms out there too who may offer better rates. Belmont was just one of those companies I could send literal pallets of crap to.

If I'm doing stuff on the side, my town has a daily electronics drop-off program for residents of the town to use. They accept basically any electronic or wiring as long as it isn't a CRT with broken glass, or a refrigerator. They don't accept batteries unless the battery is a part of a product, such as a laptop. I usually remove any rechargeable batteries and drop them off to Home Depot, who has free collection of Lithium and NiCD/NiMH batteries.

Generico300@reddit

It's fun that we pretend the e-waste ends up somewhere different and the whole thing isn't just a scam to convince people some company gives a fuck about pollution.

Kanibalector@reddit

To be fair, even a brand new HP printer is ewaste these days.

NexusOne99@reddit

All printers are ewaste. Why are you putting ink on paper? There is no reason.

Rentun@reddit

Lol, there are obviously reasons

pdp10@reddit

Signs, equipment and storage labels, shipping labels, notices, flyers, maps, presentation handouts, contact info in non VCARD situations.

HalOphamer@reddit

Each day we stay further from the LaserJet 4's light.

OcotilloWells@reddit

Laserjet 5 gang here.

I do need to get it cleaned though.

Stonewalled9999@reddit

just put a dry washcloth in the paper tray and print a page with 2 dots on it that will clean it all out for you. (only partly joking those things could handle anything)

scoldog@reddit

Laserjet 1100 represent!

Wizdad-1000@reddit

Laserjet 4000 here. (I work in a hospital and we STILL have a few of these dinosaur workhorses.)

IAmMarwood@reddit

I gave a good home to a 4100DTN for many years and only really got rid of it because I needed colour and didn’t have the space to keep it around.

At the uni I work at we regularly had 4/4000/5000s that were into the millions of sheets life.

The Konicas we moved on to were pretty bullet proof too but the new modern HPs we are on are good but you can just tell they aren’t built like the old ones.

fencepost_ajm@reddit

Except that tiny one that top-fed and had bad rollers.

With the fix being that they'd ship you a sheet to feed through that would basically roll a new rubber layer onto the existing smooth roller.

guitpick@reddit

Except for that accordion jam it liked to do sometimes.

Natural_Feeling3905@reddit

Completely agree. I've been wanting to take mine back out for a minute now.

Damn HP.

agoia@reddit

The ones a laboratory company recently sent us suggests that this is true.

Astro_Avatar@reddit

misread the post title at first and I thought that was what he was implying, lol

Opposite_Bag_7434@reddit

I used to run an e-waste disposal company. Not in the business anymore and we use one of the other smaller but reputable local companies for our e-waste. We reuse and repair/reuse as much as we can and recycle everything else.

korewarp@reddit

I've always wondered how e-waste / recycling companies makes enough money to employ a dozen employees. Do you get paid by the government or something like that? I've never paid for anyone to handle my e-waste. They either do it for free, or actually pay me for the scrap. (Tiny amounts, but still).

We did not pay for the waste we took in. We had strategic agreements with a couple of big electronics manufacturers in our area that had a fair amount of electronic waste. This created volume which was pretty helpful. ah

Some of the work is pretty labor intensive and the yield for certain types of material was very low. So not much money there. But then certain materials were definitely much more worth the effort. We handled lots of CRT monitors, there was a cost to us since they are a bigger hazardous material and expensive to recycle

It is overall profitable enough as long as the mix of materials is reasonably good.

we gave a bunch of 19 inch Trinitons to retro gamer types that then went for big money to ebay buyers. What a time that was

This is a way better way to deal with them for sure.

I've heard that the higher-end inkjet printers have salvageable NEMA stepper motors inside.

A couple of our staff get credit at Staples for recycling batteries and ink cartridges, so those get picked before going to e-waste.

trail-g62Bim@reddit

I was today old when I found out Best Buy and Staples takes that stuff.

Used to work for local government and they were fastidious about reselling anything of value to recoup costs. The process was a bit of a pain but it was nice not having to worry about finding a place to send old equipment.

conjoined979@reddit

A lot of big (and usually even big-ish) cities will have companies that specialize in e-waste. Not an MSP, so I don't have to sell clients on anything but we have a big rolling tub from a local company that sits in our office until we fill it. Call them to schedule a pickup and $50 later we have a new empty tub. Some things are additional charges, like lithium batteries but others are credits, like old UPS lead batteries.

WitnessTemporary3415@reddit

Yeah, tossing electronics in the trash is a mistake, easy fixes out there if you know where to go

mrlinkwii@reddit

the government has a system you bring electric for free as per EU law https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/waste-electrical-and-electronic-equipment-weee_en

Loose-Profile-3938@reddit

yeah ur right

AlexisFR@reddit

Don't you cities have public places dedicated to throwing out things you can't throw out in the common bins ?

OMGItsCheezWTF@reddit

A reminder that in the UK, the WEEE mandates that producers of hardware are liable for its disposal and recycling, you only have to pay to get the equipment to them.

Got a bunch of old HP printers? Contact HP, arrange to ship them to them (at your cost) and they'll dispose of them (at their cost).

UltraEngine60@reddit

And if unopened they go for a lot of money on eBay for some reason.

dat510geek@reddit

Local councils in most states of Australia have an ewaste bin for free. So no excuse really. They also have bins for toners, all sized batteries and everything really. Oil even. People are lazy still.

Julio_Ointment@reddit

Look into where this ewaste goes.

This seems like a question better suited for an MSP sub.

As internal IT, we have a deal with a secure ewaste disposal group that gave us a couple of gaylords that we fill up and have them swap out every couple of months or so. Anything broken or retired gets chunked into those. They even take the microwaves that facilities dumps on us from sites that recently had popcorn banned in the breakrooms.

I have worked in MSPs, though, and if you have clients on contracts, I would suggest finding a good waste disposal company to partner with and adding that as a service.

You get to tidy up junk clogging up closets and such at client sites, making your job easier when going there next time, limit their risk factors by not having old shit that could have company stuff on laying around, and do them a favor with just random crap like printers (they've gotta pay if they want you to take any CRTs, that costs extra).