Quill.com worked alongside Clover to recycle the cartridges in a national programme.
The company stated in a press release that it had recycled around 2,982,856 pounds worth of inkjet and toner cartridges since 2011 through its Ink and Toner Recycle Programme across the USA, with the announcement timed “in light of National Earth Month” which included Earth Day on 22 April.
The site, which calls itself “a provider of every product that busy professionals need to run their small and medium-sized business”, collected 1.7 million cartridges last year alone, with yearly participation said to be increasing at “an average rate” of 26 percent. The programme is said to be “one of the first of its kind”, as customers can send used cartridges back to the company “using a downloadable, pre-paid mailing label”.
The cartridges are then reused through remanufacturing by Clover, or “broken down and used in the production of other office supplies” should they not be able to be remanufactured. Quill.com also gives participants an incentive to recycle by offering a QuillCash loyalty payment of $2 (€1.44) per cartridge, with a maximum payment of $20 (€14.46) per month, into the customer’s account.
Quill.com added that it had calculated that the number of cartridges collected would have helped “omit annual greenhouse gas emissions in an amount equivalent to about 260 passenger cars”.
Sergio Pereira, Quill.com’s President, stated: “The Quill.com team is thrilled at the Ink and Toner Programme’s success over the past three years. We’ve transformed an otherwise neglected resource into sustainable product for our clients’ continued benefit, and we look forward to encouraging more green business practices for years to come.”