Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, HP Japan and Lexmark announced today that they will begin making donations to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) by recycling ink cartridges.
The Ink Cartridge Homecoming Project, launched in April 2008, was set up with the belief that that companies marketing inkjet printers have a social responsibility to recycle used ink cartridges. It says that they should work towards the creation of a recycling-based society through conservation efforts.
Every six months, the project will make a donation to UNEP of three yen (2p) for every ink cartridge returned. The Japanese are encouraged to place cartridges in any one of the 3,639 collection boxes at post offices and some local government offices in Japan.
The donations will support various activities such as global warming, climate change, threats to biodiversity and the efficient use of resources.
By providing indirect assistance to UNEP activities, including forest protection and biodiversity conservation, the project will attain a higher level of social significance and take an increasingly active approach in global environmental protection.
This may be all for a good cause, but remanufacturers say that reusing the cartridge is a lot cheaper than recycling it.