Recycler’s Gurjit Degun talks to the inventor Michael Gell.
Reusing ink cartridges is still not as commercial as it could be. We need an easy but effective way to show the public how much money they could save. And of course, to help remanufacturers get ahead of the game against the OEMs.
So what more than to show customers just how much they are saving from opting for remanufactured cartridges by using a comparison calculator?
A new website has been launched to help to do exactly this. Carbonclick boasts a free comparison calculator where consumers can find out about the benefits of remanufactured toner cartridges over OEMs’.
As soon as energy and environmental consultancy Xanfeon’s Michael Gell found out that OEMs do not provide information on the carbon footprint of their cartridges, he says it was like a “red flag to a bull”.
The idea, he says, is to “provide users with information about printer cartridges that is not readily available in the marketplace”.
Initially only available in the UK, the Carbonclick comparison calculator compares the carbon footprint of an average new cartridge to the corresponding remanufactured cartridge.
Gell explains that many businesses want to reduce their carbon footprint and choosing remanufactured cartridges offers a possibility to do that. “The issue those businesses face is that they wish to include the carbon saving associated with their purchasing decisions in their environmental accounts and in their business carbon disclosures,” he says.
However, Carbonclick is not aimed purely at the general public. There is also a more detailed calculator, available on a pay-per-calculate basis, intended for use by remanufacturers. This will help remanufacturers show their customers the difference in price and carbon emissions from OEM cartridges.
“In addition to providing information to the general user, remanufacturers would also like to inform their customers of the potential savings in CO2 or provide an estimate of the CO2 embodied in the remanufactured cartridge. Up until now there was nowhere for remanufacturers find the information,” says Gell.
So how does it actually work?
The comparison calculator, aimed at the general public, requires the user to select from five categories to identify which components have been replaced, and from another three categories, to indicate the end of life stages. Gell adds: “The end of life stages need to be specified because there are different carbon implications whether the materials are sent to landfill or to an energy from waste plant.”
The detailed calculator for remanufacturers requires: the page yield of the cartridge, which components are replaced and the fate of the spent components (landfill, waste to energy, materials recovery), mode of transport of the cartridge to and from the user (car, van, courier, post) and distances travelled, and what happens to the refilled cartridge after that becomes empty.
And the website includes more – a directory to search for the closest suppliers to keep costs low. During a presentation at the UKCRA meeting in February, members seemed to be very enthusiastic about this idea.
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