3 Ways Recycling Ink Cartridges in Schools Can Help Build Students Character

Ever wonder what’s the best thing your kid could be doing at school to help you save some coins?

Recycling.

Not just any recycling. All recycling. Papers and paperboard scraps discarded from class projects. The leaves collected from caring for a school garden. And the ink cartridges used while printing Arial font newsletters on how to keep the PTA alive.
Recycling is everywhere. And because of this, our children are learning some handy lessons day to day.
Schools are powerful conveyors of social norms. What they’re exposed to for more than six hours a day can be a heavy influence on future behavior.

That’s why teaching children the importance of recycling everything – even with those small ink cartridges inside of the class printer – is a huge contributor to molding good personal character.

Nobody wants a mean kid.

Read on to find out how encouraging school recycling habits can foster good character traits in students at school and at home.

Recycling Shows Compassion

We all want to raise our kids to be compassionate beings with hearts of gold. The biggest way to teach such lesson is by our own actions.

When schools take the initiative to introduce recycling to students, there is an enlightenment happening.
Kids are understanding the world around them and how organisms work together to create a coexisting society.

Where should it start?

The classroom is a great opportunity. Encouraging students to compost food scraps, recycle plastic utensils and be mindful of waste is an effective character fet building tool.

They learn what caring for something bigger than themselves really stands for. It becomes more about helping the environment and the organisms than helping themselves.

Schools should take the opportunity to encourage walks with their students through the classrooms and school offices while pointing out recyclables.

There should be some exposure to recycling in other parts of the school like the offices and the cafeteria so that students may appreciate the effort school administrators are putting to make their environment cleaner.

School children are heavy receptors of information and providing useful tips in a natural setting is a big help to showing them how to develop and keep healthy habits.

Landfills are destroying our environment. Our children should know about it.

Recycling Shows Responsibility

A huge benefit of teaching kids the importance of recycling is the big responsibility lesson.

Children like to feel as a part of the bigger picture. Allowing them to help with the recycling while encouraging them to care for their surroundings is key to providing them with a voice to do so.

Let them take control of the recycling around the classroom and school. They can create signs for the garbage cans, make lists of what people should look out for to recycle and encourage their own families to try saving their planet. It’s fun, boosts creativity and imagination but more importantly, it saves the planet.

Recycling is Saving Money

Saving money is a huge asset to schools. Explaining the process of saving money to the kids will help give them insight on the importance of smart spending.

And smart spending is still a valuable asset to have as an adult. Imagine the healthy choices and practices a child with recycling habits from young will express when older.

Imagine if you knew more about recycling before the threat of global warming. Would it have made a difference?

Probably not. But your conscience would have been clear and your pockets a little heavier.

It’s a lesson in money management when your kid pays attention to recycling. They become more aware of the types of products they should be using and more concerned with the way they’re disposed.

Ultimately saving you and the environment some distress.

Landfills are destroying our environment. Our children should know about it. In between the tough algebra lessons, schools should take some time to practice recycling.

More and more offices and tech workplaces are utilizing the useful money saving practice that is recycling ink cartridges. So it makes sense to extend this to our kids who are, in the end, following our steps to saving the planet.

If not the little ones…then who?

If you have unused toner, please consider visiting us at tonerconnect.net. For any used toner, please reach out to your local community about recycling.

How Selling Your Toner Reduces Your Carbon Footprint

While hiking along your favorite trails it’s not unusual to see signs reminding you to keep your carbon footprint to a minimum. Even singer/superstar Justin Timberlake is leading the charge to reduce his impact. For every place his tour stops, he has calculated what his carbon footprint is and has trees planted to make up for it.

So what is a carbon footprint? And why are people like park rangers and Justin Timberlake concerned about it? We at Toner Connect have the answer along with what you can do about it.

What is a carbon footprint?

Every person on the planet is leaving carbon footprints. In short, it’s the CO2 (carbon dioxide) that is created from your everyday lifestyle. Carbon dioxide comes from fossil fuels that are used when you do things like run your car with gasoline or heat your home and which then turns into greenhouse gases.
The reason why there’s a big stink about it is that it’s what scientists and Al Gore believe are contributing to the increase in our Earth’s temperature.

What’s the big deal?

By raising the core temperature of the Earth, greenhouse gases will cause what’s known as the Global Warming crisis. Inevitably causing glaciers to melt, sea levels to rise, climate change etc…And the bad news is according to tonerrecycle, “Green House Gases emissions from manufacturing a single mono toner cartridge have been calculated to be approximately 4.8 kg CO2; per cartridge” and that’s not including the toner itself.
Along with greenhouse gases, there is the general pollution caused from our everyday lives and no matter how you look at it, in one way or another you are having a negative impact on the Earth along with a positive one.
Contributing your own carbon footprint is inevitable but along with conscious consumption of finite resources and avoiding littering, there’s one big way you can put a dent in your contribution and that’s recycling.

Where does my toner come in?

Did you know that more than 18 million toner cartridges end up in landfills all around the world? And toners aren’t like banana peels. The materials that makes up toners aren’t capable of decomposing for over a hundred years.
To put it in perspective, if someone in 1917 had somehow gotten their hands on a toner cartridge, scratched their head in confusion, tossed it in the local dump and went scuttling off to fight in WWI, it would just now in 2017, begin the breakdown of decomposition. Now imagine millions of them. Not in 1917 because goodness where would they get them? But right now, and the impact they are having on our environment. Let me tell you right now it’s not a good one. That’s where we come in.

Toner Connect and You

Did you know that you can recycle those unused cartridges? And get paid to do it? That’s right. At Toner Connect, we love our world so much that we’re willing to pay you to help us keep it clean. Just about any unopened toner cartridges that you receive from the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) qualifies for our buyback program.
By filling out our online application to find out if your toner qualifies, you’ll be able to spare your cartridge a very very long, although painless, death in the trash heap. To find out more on how our buyback program works, check it out here.

Used Cartridges

If your cartridge is used, have no fear. It doesn’t need to end up at the landfill even though we can’t buy it. There are still plenty of options and thank goodness there are because according to the stats from tonerrecycle almost 80% of used toner cartridges get thrown away.
Check with the manufacturer to see if they have a return policy. A lot of companies prefer to have used cartridges returned to them for them to refill and resell. You can also recycle your cartridge but make note that you can’t just drop it in your nearest recycle bin.
Office stores like OfficeMax or Staples usually have a policy in place where used cartridges can be dropped off for recycling. Finally, a lot of people prefer to refill their toners themselves which is always an option for you. For a full explanation of how to recycle toners, check out our post here.

The Bottom Line

Leaving your carbon footprint is almost unavoidable but there are definitely ways to make up for it. Whether it’s planting trees in response to your sold out concert or recycling your plastic bottles or selling unused toner cartridges. Every little bit helps and we at Toner Connect want to do our part, and that’s where you come in.
By recycling used cartridges and selling us your unused toner cartridges you’re helping us help you make your mark on the world a little less impactful…in a good way.

The EPA And You: How To Print The Green Way

Fathered by the United States’ 37th president Richard Nixon, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was established in 1970. And to no one’s surprise, it’s purpose is to protect the health of humans and the welfare of the environment.

With the use of ink cartridges and toner cartridges on a steady rise, the EPA couldn’t help but notice the rather unpleasant result that discarded cartridges have in the landfill they’re tossed in. Intent on leaving some sort of messy legacy, cartridges from both ink and toners alike take up to hundreds of years to decompose. And for the good people at the EPA, that was no bueno.

However, thanks to modern technology and companies like Toner Connect there’s a better way to get rid of the waste without being well wasteful.

The EPA wants you….to recycle

Initially put out in April 2013, the EPA created a guideline for ways to reduce your ink usage and while you’re at it, save thousands of acres of forestland. Calling it the Electric Challenge, the EPA came up with these clever ways to save on paper and ink.

Reduce Margins
Reduce Line Spacing
Change and Reduce Font Size

Reduce Margins

When creating a word doc you have the option to set your own margins which can be extremely beneficial when it comes to saving on paper.

Reduce Line Spacing

Right along with reducing margins, tightening up line spacing can get more words on each page. Simply click on the paragraph icon and where it says “line spacing” select “single” or change your setting manually by typing in “0.9”.

Change and Reduce Font Size

Earlier this year Toner Connect divulged what four fonts will save you the most on ink and the EPA agrees. Click here to find out which made the cut. Along with font type, changing the font size to a smaller number can definitely save on space and in the long, on ink and toner as well.

Just by adhering to these four rules it was estimated in 2012 that 170,000 sheets of paper were spared from consumer consumption. In other words, 62 40-foot trees (or someone’s backyard in Oregon) were preserved.

A small victory to be sure but the EPA wasn’t done yet.

Not satisfied with merely saving life-giving trees in our Pacific Northwest, the organization assembled another list and this time it’s on how to save on ink and toner and extend the life of the cartridges we buy.

Double-sided Printing/Shrink to Fit
Reader View Printing
Fast draft/Resolution

Double-sided Printing/Shrink to Fit

One of the more common knowledge ink savers (but we can hardly expect the EPA to come up with everything), double-sided printing not only saves on paper but combining it with the “Shrink to Fit” option and you’ll save on your ink and toner as well. Double-win.

Reader View Printing

If you find yourself in need of printing a page directly from the internet, one nice way to avoid including all those annoying banners and ads is clicking on the Reader View option. If the page is readable in that mode, alongside the link you will see three and a half lines stacked. It will change the page to only display the text and images directly affiliated with the subject.

By printing from the Reader View, you can bypass all the ads you would normally see along with the page.

Fast Draft/Resolution

Finally, one last way to save on ink is to change the printer setting to Fast Draft for documents that don’t require the ink to stand out in a commercial fashion. Similarly, changing the resolution to a lower setting will help as well. Most new printers begin at 600 DPI and you generally won’t need it so high.

Now that you’re aware of how to save on ink and paper, what do you do with your cartridges when they’re empty? The EPA has an opinion on that too.

But first…

Let’s go over what you can do with your UNUSED cartridges. (Did you think I was going to say “let’s take a selfie”? Because frankly I considered it).

At Toner Connect, this is where our speciality lies and where we come into play. If you’ve ever worked in an office setting or purchased your own home printer you know that the manufacturer will send toner cartridges, and for one reason or another they sometimes end up going unused.

Before the EPA came along and reminded us it was cool to be environmentally friendly, we would have just tossed it in the trash and called it a day. But what if I told you you’d be throwing away money instead? Dumpster diving anyone? Here at Toner Connect we will buy your unused toner cartridge and give you an excellent price for it. And it couldn’t be easier!

There are a few guidelines your toner must adhere to which are as follows:

Completely sealed
From an OEM manufacturer
In the original box
Free from any tampering

To view a complete explanation of our buyback program click here and let us pay you today!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

I’ve always been keen on knowing who came up with the idea of recycling. Part of me enjoys picturing a member of the EPA committee sloshing through a depressing landfill and upon spotting an old tennis racket, holding it up and shouting “hey fellows! I bet we could still use this!”

But whatever it’s origins, recycling certainly includes your empty cartridges.

Luckily you have a few options. When it comes to ink cartridges, a lot of people prefer to home fill them which would certainly save money on new ink and of course save the cartridge from a very very very slow death at the dump.

Otherwise, you can do the following:

Return it to the original manufacturer. The company will refurbish it for resale.
Recycle at an office store. Most major office suppliers will have a recycling program in place for toner and ink cartridges.

Toner Connect and the EPA want to keep our earth “green” so the next time you find yourself with an empty ink/toner cartridge, make sure it gets a second life.