printer toner – America's Top Toner Buyers

Where To Sell Your Empty Used Toner Cartridges

It’s no secret that you can get money for your unwanted unused toner. But did you know that you can cash in on your used toner cartridges too? Even if it’s the humanitarian thing to do and recycle your toner cartridges for free, throwing some cash into the mix doesn’t hurt. You can choose to sell online as many companies offer free shipping or in store as some stores offer in store credit. We’ve rounded up our favorite picks to get you started on your journey to extra cash and for the folks looking just to save the planet without monetary gain, we’ve got you covered with some of our favorite and easiest ways to recycle.

eBay

The all-time classic place to sell anything, used cartridges are more than welcome on the eBay marketplace. It’s pretty easy to use and even though the website looks a little outdated, you still have a chance to make a good amount selling those unwanted cartridges. Just post some photos of your item in good condition and plug the specs in the ad so folks know exactly what you’re selling. These specs should include stuff like the model number, color and brand. The pro tip is to try selling in bulk to get around constant shipping costs but selling one at a time still works either way!

Buy-Back Companies

These companies buy your used cartridges and most times pay well for it. A great option for schools looking to encourage children to care for their environment, buy-back sites pay for large amounts of recyclable empty toner cartridges. For example, Cartridges for Kids and FundingFactory pay cash to schools and organizations looking to get rid of their unwanted used cartridges. They offer free shipping and ultimately a new stream of money for these establishments. Other buy back sites include NeedEmpty and UsRecycleInk that offer competitive prices and free shipping. Many of these companies advise customers to box their cartridges well and be sure their padding is efficient because if the cartridge is damaged during shipping, then there’s no deal.

Rewards Programs

Popular office supply stores like Office Depot and Staples encourage folks to donate their used cartridges for store credit towards their next purchase. You can turn in as many as 10 (or sometimes more) at a time, so check with your office supply store to be sure. It’s easy to send in your used cartridges; just head over to the store and hand it to an assistant at the register or you can also request a shipping label online. Once the cartridges are received, you get money credited to your account for your next buy. This is a great option for the people who may want to stick with the familiar brands while saving the planet.

Craigslist

Almost anything could be sold off Craigslist, from used cars to used toner cartridges. You can be location specific and limit your post to only folks in your area. That makes it easier to evade those shipping costs and deal with a real person instead of a system. The biggest downside is the common knowledge that you cannot trust everyone on Craigslist. Therefore, be cautious of who you share personal and location specific information with.

Buy and Sell Apps

On the go apps like LetGo and Offerup are two alternatives to eBay and Craigslist that make selling your items online feel like a breeze. Just download the app, upload your photos to the site’s marketplace, and wait for potential buyers to reach out. Users can list their items for free and have the option of being location specific when selling their item. Empty toner cartridges are regular items for sale so be sure to take a look at some of the ads you see to know how to alter yours in order to attract buyers.

Manufacture Take-backs

Companies like Brother, Lexmark, Dell and Canon offer their customers an option to recycle their toner cartridges for free. You can request a shipping label online and mail in those empty cartridges. The companies only accept OEM cartridges and even though they don’t offer any cash back options, you’ll feel loads better knowing you’re saving the landfills from being over loaded. Even warehouse club super store Costco offers their customers the option of mailing or dropping in their empty cartridges, so check with your local store just in case.

Other Recycling Options

There are a number of ways to properly dispose of your empty toner cartridges and a helpful place to start is Earth911 where you can find the options nearest you. Other sites like RecycleNet are also useful to match you with recycling services. If you want to recycle and make some extra cash, go for it – any one of our recommendations is a great way to start. If you want to save the planet out of the goodness of your heart, no coins included, that’s great too! The point is to keep our environment safe and the cartridges out of the landfills. In the event that you’re unsure of how to dispose of your empty cartridges properly, don’t hesitate to reach out to us and we will try our best to help!

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Why Toner Connect Only Buys OEM Toner

Toner Connect Supports OEM Toner Over Compatibles

There are a quite a few decisions that have to be made when you’re in the market for replacement toner.

First, you have to determine the types and sizes of toner cartridges that will fit your brand of printer. Once you have that down, there are capacity and colors to worry about.

Even after all of that, there’s still a choice left to make: will you opt for toner made by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), or will you choose a compatible or remanufactured model to save some money?

Quality Products

When manufacturers release a new model of printer, they will also have an associated toner cartridge that they make to work with that printer (and most likely a few others in their line).

This toner, known as the OEM, is made with that company’s quality standards, and they’re usually bound by some guarantee that it will work with a certain model range of printer.

When you buy these cartridges, you’re buying that level of quality, which means that the retail price of these cartridges is generally higher than what are known as compatible cartridges, or those that have been reverse engineered to work with various printer brands. These cartridges, often from much smaller companies, are not held to the printer manufacturers’ quality specs and are not guaranteed to the same standard that the OEM cartridges are.

Without knowing where they came from, Toner Connect can’t pass them on to you with the same level of confidence as it can with the OEM cartridges.

Checks and Balances

The costs of making compatible toner is so low, it’s a no brainer for some distributors to buy direct from the manufacturers of these products and pass them on to the end-user without any checks or balances.

The companies making the compatible cartridges don’t care who they sell to, how they’ll be sold, or at what price.

As the buyer at the other end of the chain, you have no way of really knowing where that toner came from or who handled it before it got to you. When you buy an OEM cartridge from a trustworthy distributor, you can verify that it came through a certified channel of distribution and is being sold to you by a company you can trust.

Toner Connect relies on those same checks and balances to ensure the toner wey back meets the printer makers’ standards. This means that when we then sell a cartridge, we know that we’re passing that quality on to the next user and that it will work with the same level of quality that was originally intended.

Product Verification

You might be asking “How do I know I’ve gotten a real cartridge?”. There are quite a few telltale signs of a genuine toner from an OEM:

Packaging: Manufacturers have been catching on to the trend of counterfeit and lookalike ink and toner refills for quite a while now. They know that some distributors and resellers have pretty sophisticated techniques up their sleeves to fool you into believing you’re buying the real deal. Because of this, many brands will have added security labels to the outside of their boxes. Tags, like holograms and QR-coded stickers, show when they’ve been moved or changed. You should notice a clean box inside, with a neatly wrapped cartridge firmly secured with appropriate labeling.
Verification: Speaking of QR codes… Those are there so you can quickly scan the label with your smartphone to make sure you’ve gotten a genuine product. Brands like HP and Xerox have their own apps, which will tell you right away if you have a fake, but you can also use QR scanner apps that you might already have downloaded. Don’t have a smartphone handy? Don’t worry, you can go to the manufacturers’ websites and enter the serial number to quickly check for authenticity.

This may seem like a lot of effort just to check for a real cartridge, but when you consider the price you are paying for that toner, taking a moment to verify is worth the time.

Future Outlook

Would Toner Connect ever buy back compatible cartridges? The short answer is no. The longer answer is – nope.

Toner Connect hasn’t ever accepted compatibles and doesn’t have any plans to start. The costs of not knowing the toner cartridges’ origins or quality standards are just too high. Plus, it wouldn’t be cost effective to resell those compatibles back since they’re so cheap direct from the distributors in the first place.

We are working towards partnerships with select manufacturers to offer compatible cartridges direct to our customers. This way, we can verify the source and make sure we’re selling a product that you can trust. You will never find any compatible cartridges in our store that were repurchased, as we will continue buying back only the OEM cartridges so that we can pass those quality assuranceslong to our customers.

How to Avoid Buying Counterfeit Toner

In a world where anything and everything can be found online at a discount, it’s not surprising that people have figured out how to sell fake versions of that anything and everything.

The world of counterfeit goods has grown into a massive operation, bigger than some countries’ entire economies, making life very hard for real companies making authentic products.

This is all very alarming, but it’s not the end of the world by any means.

Luckily, there are still some pretty surefire ways of buying the real deal, whether it’s a designer handbag or a pair of nice sunglasses, and buying toner is no different.

Authorized Retailers

You’ve seen the websites and have probably been tempted to buy something from them.

Unfortunately, Superdiscountprintersupply.com.ru.biz is not a great place to buy toner. In fact, it’s probably not even a good idea to click around on one of these sites for too long unless you like malware.

It’s incredible easy for anyone to pop up a website, steal some pictures from a legitimate printer supply shop, and start selling knockoff toner from an unknown factory. The good news is that it’s not too difficult to tell if the site you’re looking at is an authorized retailer or not.

The first and best way to make sure you’re heading to the right place is to start at the source: the manufacturer’s website.

If they don’t sell the toner themselves, they will almost certainly be able to link you to a place that will. This is the absolute guaranteed way to ensure that you’re getting a legit site.

The pricing may seem a bit steep in some cases when buying direct from the manufacturer, but that price buys you peace of mind. It also buys you a quality and verified product that came from a factory with product control, and could get you a warranty or guarantee as well.

The next best way will be to start with an authorized retailer or a vendor that is able to verify and guarantee the authenticity of their toner and provides a return policy to back that guarantee up.

These businesses are either certified directly by the manufacturer of the toner or offer a thorough process of verifying the quality and authenticity of the toner they are selling.

In other cases, the retailer will buy back and independently verify the authenticity and quality of the toner that they then resell. This may allow them to offer a warranty or money guarantee.

Outside of buying direct, these are the best places to make sure you’re getting real toner. Many times, the manufacturer will
offer a link to these sites, especially if there is a physical store location selling the toner in an area nearby.

Buying Tips

There’s a really good chance that something sounding too good to be true actually IS too good to be true.

If you’re getting ready to click “buy” and the deal seems unbelievable, take a minute to check around the website to make sure you’re in a legitimate place. The toner may be open-box or return, which is fine as long as the product is still sealed and is
guaranteed.

Reading the fine print to verify that the deal really is a deal will save some headaches down the road.

If you have any doubts, but still think you can get a good product, you may want to pay with a credit card that has a purchase guarantee to help you get your money back if the toner ends up not being what you expected. The bottom line is that you will get what you pay for, and in most cases the quality and authenticity guaranteed by purchasing direct is worth any premium you might pay.

Open The Box

If you’ve already purchased toner and are wondering if you
got burned, do not put the toner in your printer to test it out. There are a few things to do first to ensure
the authenticity and freshness of the toner before use:

1. The box – Most toner manufacturers clearly label the outside packaging with their branding and the model number of the toner itself. You will also find information on the types of printers that the toner will work with. In many cases, there will be a stamp or seal on the box with some sort of hologram or foil image that shows the brand of the toner and some other imaging of authenticity.

2. Expiration date – Toner won’t necessarily spoil like cheese, but the quality can degrade over time. For this reason, manufacturers put a “best by” date on the box/packaging to let you know how long you have to use the product.

3. Foil wrapping and sealed packaging – First, the inside of the box should be clean and completely free of dirt and debris, and everything packed tightly without a bunch of loose packaging bumping around. The foil wrap and/or sealed bag that contains the toner cartridge should also be clean and not torn or damaged in any way.

4. Toner – The actual cartridge should not have cracks or be leaking toner powder. Loose parts or damage to the cartridge could be an indication of repackaged toner.

It’s extremely tempting to purchase discount toner from a place that seems to have the best deals around.

Toner, in general, can be expensive to replace and it’s understandable to try saving some money by searching for a deal. Plenty of people know that, and as mentioned before, have made great businesses out of fooling others into buying fake or repackaged toner.

A little bit of common sense and a lot of caution will go a long way to helping you make sure you’re getting only authentic toner. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is, but spending the time to verify the source and seller can tell you what you’re getting into.

Now that you know how to spot counterfeit toner, how about you let us give you a quote for your unused OEM toner?

Is Printer Toner Safe For Your Skin?

There are quite a few things we think about when buying toner, from price to brand to where we buy it, but safety might not be on that list.

In fact, safety is probably pretty low on the list of concerns when thinking about office supplies and equipment in general.

That’s alright because making copies isn’t the most dangerous thing we do all day. During normal operation, printing with and using toner is very safe, but there are some things to keep in mind when handling and using toner and printers.

Printing Safely

First of all, let’s get this out of the way: printing is safe.

There should be, under normal circumstances, no real reason to worry about being near office equipment.

Now that we’ve said that, printers can and do emit carbon monoxide (CO). The cooling and air circulation functions inside the machines expel warm air from the moving parts, and in doing so push out the CO gases that the printer can create during operation.

This doesn’t mean that they are giant gas-making machines, though, as printers won’t get hot enough to produce a ton of CO under normal operation. When machines get really hot and are kept in rooms where the ventilation is poor, gases can build up and cause problems for anyone that is in the space with them for extended periods of time.

Even when operating normally, however, certain parts of printers do get very warm.

It’s actually a requirement of toner that it is heated by a laser to melt the powders inside the cartridges to print. Other moving parts inside, especially rollers and other pieces that move paper through the printer can get very hot, which can cause burns if touched too soon after printing. Most of us will never come in contact with these parts, but printers do jam and have other issues occasionally, so we do have to reach inside to help things keep moving when these things happen.

Toner Contact

Toner cartridges themselves are also considered to be safe in general, but when broken they can release harmful toxins that are used to create the powder inside. A chemical called carbon black is used when creating the powder inside toner, which is known to be a carcinogen. As with the printers themselves, toner is pretty benign, and most people will never come in contact with the harmful stuff inside, but there can be some danger if the cartridge is damaged or broken during shipping or normal use.

When printers heat the powder inside toner cartridges with a laser to print on a page, this doesn’t release that powder out into the air, so there is no increased risk of breathing it in when printing normally.

What Can You Do To Stay Safe?

All of that sounds pretty scary, right? Probably not, but taking some precautions when handling and using toner, printers, and other office equipment is still a good idea.

Everyone is always fighting over the office temperature and who is hot or cold, but the movement of air through the space is important to helping us breathe. When people are packed into a space with little air movement and lots of fluorescent lights, printers, computers, and someone microwaving fish in the kitchen, the quality of the air being breathed in degrades quickly and significantly. Being sure to have a properly maintained HVAC system will greatly help cut down on these issues and move any harmful things in the air out of the space.

Office design also plays a role in this area. It can be tempting and very convenient to place printers at “hub” locations, where many employees have quick access to them. If at all possible, locating office equipment a short distance away from employees’ desks will help cut down on any risk (even small) of them breathing in or coming in contact with any harmful chemicals or gases if an issue came up.

Next, any printer issues more complicated than a simple paper jam should be handled by a trained professional. Printers are pretty safe and the risks of getting hurt are low, but fiddling around inside a complicated machine greatly increases your chances of encountering a problem.

Last, and this is a big one: make sure the toner you’re buying is authentic and not repackaged. This will help cut down on damaged toner out of the box and reduce the risk of coming into contact with toner powder and any of the potentially harmful agents that come along with it.

Make sure you’re storing the toner in an area that is both dry and well ventilated without too many temperature extremes. Since toner is activated by a heating element (laser) inside the printer, you won’t want them to heat up before the printing actually takes place.

To be clear: under normal operation, printers and toners are very safe.

There should be no reason to have a fear of being hurt when making copies at the office. Taking simple precautions by checking toner for damage and not trying a DIY printer repair will go a long way toward making sure you stay safe when operating the office equipment. Even with all the caution in the world, people can have accidents, and it may not always be obvious when a problem happens.

Of course, if someone comes experiences an issue, especially one that causes discomfort or pain, consulting medical professionals and sending that person to the doctor will always be the best policy.

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5 Ways Toner Optimizer Helps You Work Smarter

“Every silver lining’s got a touch of grey.” – Unknown

Thank Goodness! We can now use the Toner Optimizer to make our printing smart. Toners have come a long way. Copiers have since graduated from being an encumbering equipment that required high-level technical training to operate. Toners are no longer feared for their likelihood to cause health problems or even explode without warning.

Printing now happens at the push of a button. If the printers have any problems, they show us error codes to indicate the exact problem, and we’d just fix it.

There’s finally a silver lining! We can now print in a breeze — anyone, anytime, anywhere. Wow! Things are looking up.

Or are they?

OK, maybe indeed things are looking good, but there’s a touch of grey in this silver lining. If you have a business and use toner printer, then you may already be worried:

Your printer BLEEDS more toner than it needs and this is costing you money,

Printing resources are hard to account for,

You are contributing to the landfill and environmental problems that cartridges are causing (without any hope of reducing your carbon footprint),

Printer troubleshooting and printing issues waste a significant amount of time, energy, and money,

Your WAN is getting overloaded by your network of printers, and that’s causing a leak in your organization’s performance.

These concerns are genuine. The truth is that your resources are indeed leaking away, and your toners are encumbering the environment.

But there’s another silver lining!

You can STOP the leak, boost productivity, and reduce your carbon footprint. What’s more? You can do all that with just a software — a Toner Optimizer.

A while ago Xerox introduced the Toner Optimizer tool. The software helps you reduce your carbon footprint while keeping your print speed and quality at its highest; it cuts printing cost, improves toner efficiency, and improves business productivity.
Let’s examine five benefits you stand to gain from using a Toner Optimizer tool.

1. The Best Print Quality with the Least Amount of Toner

Image Credit: Pixabay

You want to reduce your printing costs; the Toner Optimizer tool does exactly that does for you. The software identifies multiple elements on a page, such as graphics, texts, colors shades, and images, using advanced algorithms. This optimizer then reduces — to the lowest level possible — the amount of toner that goes into that printing work, while enabling the highest print quality and in the shortest time possible.

The software can save you up to 35 percent of pixels on text and 18 percent of pixels on graphics.

In short, Toner Optimizer saves you money, elongates the lifespan of your toner, and improves your print quality. This point alone is a big deal. There’s, even more, benefits to using Toner Optimizer Software Read on.

2. Saves the Environment

Image Credit: Pixabay

Authority sources report that the volume of toners that go to landfills yearly would easily cover 100 standard-sized football fields. The figure is currently at 350 million toner cartridges and is growing every year by 12 percent. In less than ten years, we’d have thrown enough toner cartridges away to cover ALL the stadiums in North America

Apart from the toners themselves, other resources like aluminum, oil, and plastic go to waste. In fact, 33.6 million kilograms of aluminum, 3.5 billion liters of oil, and more than more than 126 million kg of plastic are consumed every year as a direct result of landfilling with toner cartridges.

What’s more? It takes 1,000 years for a toner cartridge disposed of off in a landfill to degrade. Without considering the carbon cost of producing the toner itself, the manufacturing process of one mono-toner cartridge (again, just the cartridge alone) releases 4.8 kilograms of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the most abundant greenhouse gas we have today.

Toner Optimizer identifies and removes excess pixels from prints, without compromising on print quality. By reducing the volume of toners you consume, you have directly cut your carbon footprint and lowered the 12 percent growth rate in toners that go to landfills yearly. You have also lessened the waste that results from toner cartridge packaging and transportation.

3. Captures Useful Data

Your Toner Optimizer grants you the opportunity to oversee your printing infrastructure. You can see insights on all directly connected USB devices. Toner Optimizer makes it possible for you to identify and capture information about your printing infrastructures, such as paper and toner usage, number of connected users, the volume of printed pages, and all job tracking details.

Gathering data helps you make management decisions, cut costs and monitor waste. You’re in a better place because you know who’s using the most resources, whether the resource use is efficient, and what kind of printers to buy or replace.

4. Productive Printer Networking

Image Credit: Flickr

If you’re a large organization and have offices in multiple geographic locations, effective printer networking can be a hassle. Of course, a Toner Optimizer would be helpful if your company wants to manage it’s printing across the whole building — not across geographic locations.

Now, what’s to happen if your company decides to centralize its printing and have it managed over its wide area network (WAN)?

What would you do?

First thing would be to optimize the organization’s WAN.

Since you’ve decided to network all the printers over that WAN, your printer network would contribute a lot of traffic to your WAN. For this reason, you want to make your printing priority.

Applying the insights you gathered from your Toner Optimizer can help you manage, and even eliminate, wide area traffic from your printing. As an effect, optimizing your printing traffic supports your organization’s wide area network (WAN) to become efficient as a whole.

Having a centralized print management software dramatically reduces printer support issues. As an example, if you’re experiencing a slow network when you need to update a printer driver, the printer servers may be unreachable or even crash.

The problem described above can be hard to detect and deal with individually — a print management software would be ideal for the situation. Your Toner Optimizer furnishes helpful troubleshooting tools, centralizes control and manages individual printer queues, and helps maintain complex networking needs without hassle.

5. Integrates Well with Your Existing Workflow

The Toner Optimizer is highly responsive. With its self-configuration and self-discovery abilities, a Toner Optimizer tool blends effortlessly into any print environment. You can adjust them to fit your specific needs and configure them to work with a particular group of users.

Toner Optimizer software runs in the background. Other software-enabled tools that need to work can work simultaneously with the optimizer. The print management software won’t interrupt existing business process or workflows.

A good Toner Optimizer should be very flexible. It should fit into the company’s goals effortlessly — the organization should be better at acquiring, shrinking, growing, cutting, and evolving in any way it deems fit or needs, without struggle or stress from the software.

The goal of the optimizer tool is to help businesses across the globe simplify, secure, automate, integrate, and optimize their everyday tasks. It also helps them use their resources more efficiently and responsibly.

Image Credit: Preton

Conclusion

The silver lining in the environmental and financial burden foisted upon us by the toner cartridge industry is the Toner Optimizer tool. For now, we can’t place a finger on any “touch of grey” resulting from this software, and it probably doesn’t have one — yet.
For now, be assured that the Toner Optimizer lays most (if not all) of your worries to rest. If you haven’t started using the software already, it’s one to try. Remember that vendors may call it by other names like Pixel Optimizer, even Xerox calls their Xerox Assessment Tools or Print Awareness Tool.

What Are The Differences Between Standard and High Yield Toner?

It’s easy to get confused when buying toner, especially if you’re just starting out.

There are quite a few different terms to describe sometimes very similar things.

The terms that sound the most straightforward describe the yield of the toner, or how many pages that toner will print. Standard and high yield cartridges are exactly what they sound like, with the high yield printing a larger number of pages over the life of the toner.

Manufacturers look at what is known as page coverage as well, meaning how much of the page is actually being printed on – 5% appears to be pretty standard as an industry rating for pages printed. Beyond just counting pages and ink coverage, there are some pretty significant differences in the two yield types that not everyone thinks of when making a buying choice.

Environmental Concerns

With the increased number of pages printed by high yield cartridges, there are fewer overall cartridges needed. As manufacturing toner produces greenhouses gases and other pollution, this can reduce some of those emissions.

Using cartridges with higher yield also means that fewer cartridges are being shipped overall, reducing transportation emissions and fossil fuel use. Landfills are also being packed with dead toner, and each one takes several hundred years to decompose.

Overall Costs

It may sound a little silly to say that something costing more will actually save money over time, but high yield toner ends up printing pages at a much lower cost each than standard toner. Like some hybrid cars, the higher up-front costs are overcome by lower operating expenses, making the initial investment worth the premium.

Service and Maintenance

Many offices lease or rent their printers from a company that may also require service contracts. In some cases, this could include replacing the toner.

If you have a choice in what kind of toner is used, requesting high yield could save you money on maintenance and service charges. Even if you own your equipment, the time someone spends purchasing and replacing standard yield toner could be better spent somewhere else.

Lifespan Concerns

It may be tempting to run out and buy the highest yield cartridges you can find to save time and money, but these types of toner might not be best for everyone. Toner comes from the factory with both a warranty and an expiration date, which means that there is an actual possibility that the toner can go bad and cause quality issues.

If you aren’t able to print enough to use up the high yield toner before it expires, you may face lower print quality or even damage to your printer. Take a look at the number of pages a high yield cartridge will produce and determine your actual printing needs over the course of a year. If you aren’t getting anywhere near the high yield cartridges’ capacity, a standard yield toner may be best for you.

OEM and Generic

Most printer manufacturers offer both a high and standard yield version of toner for their printers. If you happen to own one of the few that don’t have an OEM high yield option for your printer, you may be attracted to generic choices that list your printer brand as being compatible. Believe it or not, there is probably a good reason that your printer manufacturer doesn’t offer a high yield version of toner for that printer, and it isn’t just because they want more of your money.

There may be a technical reason the printer can’t handle high yield, whether it be page feeding speed or a power supply issue, and using a generic toner cartridge in one of these machines can cause some real problems.

Outside of voiding the warranty, you may actually wear or damage the printing surfaces inside the printer by using a cartridge that isn’t designed to work with that machine. In these cases, it may be best to look at a different type of printer that can handle high yield cartridges.

There are plenty of situations where buying standard yield toner is the best choice for your needs, whether it be your actual printing usage or compatibility with the type of printer you have. It pays to do some research on your actual need and your existing equipment to determine how (or if) a high yield cartridge choice will benefit you.

If you own a printer that can’t handle high yield toner, don’t be tempted to try a workaround by buying generic or compatible toner.

Many printer manufacturers sell the machines at a loss, knowing that they will make up the difference on toner over the life of that printer, so the costs to switch to a machine that can handle high yield may not be as tough as it seems up front.

Toner and NFL: Why Paper Still Dominates the Game

What makes an NFL genius like Tom Brady? The New England Patriots quarterback is probably the nation’s best. 39-Year-Old Brady is also crowned the best signal caller in the league.

Apart from his outstanding records of success, Tom Terrific has the uncanny ability to remain mentally stable. The quarterback keeps his focus on the game even with his team down by three points in the last five minutes of gameplay.

Brady’s mental strength has paid off. He’s led his team to victory consistently. In the last one year to August 2017, Brady has bagged accolades like,

1. The most passing yards in a Super Bowl, 466.

2. Played the most number of Super Bowls, seven.

3. Super Bowls won, five.

4. The highest number of completed passes in a Super Bowl game, 43.

5. The most career passing yards in a Super Bowl, 2,071.

6. The highest number of pass attempts in a Super Bowl game, 62.

7. The most career passes attempted in the Super Bowl, 309.

8. The highest number of Super Bowl touchdowns in a career, 16.

In short, Brady commands success at will. What’s the quarterback’s victories to do with toners and papers?

Quarterbacks, Toners, and Papers

Image Credit: Brian Spurlock/USA TODAY Sports

Sitting on Tom Terrific’s wrists in every game is his playbook. That’s where he calls the signals from. That cheat sheet is printed with toner on paper.

That playbook is used for every game. Everytime. And, nope, Tom Brady isn’t the only quarterback using cheat sheets.

Defensive schemes have grown complex and quarterbacks have befriended wristband playbooks to stay competitive. Approaching the end of his rookie season on the New York Jets team, Mark Sanchez, now quarterback for the Chicago Bears, started using wrist-worn cheat sheets. Sanchez has since played for the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles.

You’d find cheat sheets on the wrists of most quarterbacks (even entire teams!). Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Alex Smith who played for the San Francisco 49ers and now plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. Tim Tebow who played for the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets.

Eli Manning stopped using cheat sheets in 2009. Before the New York Giants quarterback started memorizing his signal calls, he’d depended on playbooks.

According to NJ.com, Kurt Warner commented on his experience with using a wrist-worn playbook. Warner who’s played for the New York Giants, Arizona Cardinals, and St. Louis Rams said,

“I finally used it in Arizona. You’d love to have somebody call the play to you (via the helmet radio), so you get to hear it one time. And then you get to call it a second time, so it gets to process in your mind twice.”

Tom Brady and other quarterbacks happen to be benefiting from a half-century old culture of wearing cheat sheets on wristbands. Quarterbacks started wearing playbook wristbands in 1965.

How Papers Got into the Game

Baltimore Colts quarterback Tom Matte’s cheat sheet from 1965, displayed in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Image Credit: NJ.com

The 1965 Baltimore Colts quarterbacks, Johnny Unitas (who was the starter) and Gary Cuozzo (the backup), had sustained season-ending injuries. The only hope left for the team was Tom Matte.

A loving wife, an index card, and a magic marker in the kitchen table of a suburban Baltimore home were the humble beginnings of the playbook wristband some 52 years ago.

Tom had been in Baltimore Colts since 1961 and was familiar with their play. The team’s offensive coordinator Don McCafferty came up with the idea of the playbook to make things easy for Matte. The cheat sheet worked out well.

McCafferty’s wife, Judy, helped with writing a crude version of the cheat sheet. She wrote the playbooks for the final two games of the 1965 season, and then the playoff between the Colts and the Green Bay Packers.

Matte is now 78 years old. Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio has the former quarterback’s original cheat sheet wristband on their display. Tom is amazed at how the playbook has gained wide acceptance. He says “I cheated my way into the Hall of Fame.”

Habits and Paper-centric Departments

Gartner’s Vice President of Research, Ken Weilerstein, says that printing initially surged with an increase in online content. According to Mr. Weilerstein, printing volumes rose in response to the abundance of content online.

Let’s take a look at the stats here. Back in 2015 – that’s a long time considering the growth speed of online content – every minute (i.e., every 60 seconds),

204 million emails are sent out,
1,400 blog posts go live (that’s over 2 million articles every day),
Facebook gets 2.46 million posts,
Twitter welcomes 277,000 tweets,
Yelp 26,380 reviews and the list goes on.

According to Hosting Facts, we have 1.24 billion websites as of August 2017. Since British physicist Tim Berners-Lee published the first website in 1991, we’ve had a mind-blowing 124 billion percentage growth in websites!

I can’t think of any other technology that’s grown as fast as the internet. And it’s still growing.

People feel more comfortable reading lengthy texts on paper than on screens. So they print. The growing volume of online content encourages more printing.

Infotrends released a study in January 2016. In the study, 60 percent of printing done in companies of any size were essential – 40 percent were optional. Millennials (18 to 29-year-olds), counter-intuitively, didn’t show any significant drop in their printing habits.

NFL teams hire an average of 3,739 people, including office staff. The Infotrends studies say human resources, accounting, and legal are the most paper-centric departments. Activities that happen regularly like invoicing, printing notes and onboarding consume paper.

In the words of Weilerstein, “It is easier to read long documents on paper than on-screen. Paper is universally accepted as valid for contracts and other legal documents, and the signatures are familiar and accepted to a greater degree than any digital signature.”

IDC’s Keith Kmetz, who serves as the organization’s program vice president for imaging, printing and document solutions shares Ken Weilerstein’s views. Keith pointed out that many companies, including some NFL teams, have initiated a “paperless light” concept.

Almost all internal processes are entirely paperless, in a “paperless light” concept. However, integrating external processes into that internal system would involve some printing and scanning.

To Wrap it Up

Papers will dominate the game for the foreseeable future. Tom Matte’s legacy won’t be digitized anytime soon. The NFL and teams in the NFL, just like other large organizations in the Infotrends studies, have accounting, legal, and other paper-centric activities that’s not about to go obsolete.

Papers will dominate this game because they help ensure victory. And, hey, who doesn’t like winning?

How Much Money Is Hiding In Your Closet? Your Unused Toner Could Be Worth a Lot

That’s what happened when a restoration project at Liberty Hall Museum in Union, NJ uncovered wine that was over 200 years old (and unopened!) that had been shipped there shortly after the American Revolution.

Picture this:

You’ve got an endless supply of office supplies.

Perhaps you’ve got a new printer, and some of your ink cartridges are no longer compatible.

Or maybe, you simply have a surplus that you don’t have the capacity to use up before the expiration date.

In any event, you decide to declutter.

What if you could turn that clutter into cold hard cash

That would mean savings for your business that can go towards your other needs.

Best of all, if printing is a major part of your day-to-day, you can save thousands on a yearly basis.

The result?

That money goes towards your bottom line and can make all the difference between a negative fiscal quarter and a good one.

So, have you looked in your closet lately? You could be sitting on some cash.

Why There’s Massive Earning Potential In Unused Toner

Here’s the thing:

There’s a high demand for unused toner cartridges.

That’s mainly because replacement cartridges are expensive to purchase directly from manufacturers.

Also, many people have a surplus that they would love to get off their hands without losing the money that they spent. In all cases, they’re willing to part with their toners at a lower price than they acquired them.

For businesses and individuals who have a heavy ink inventory that needs to be frequently replenished, the benefits can be nothing short of remarkable.

This means that the market for recycling unused toners has grown tremendously over the years. From online marketplaces to buy-back programs, there’s a profitable niche out there.

You now have more options than ever to get some monetary value out of toners that have been collecting dust in your closet.

How can you sell your toner cartridges?

To begin, you want to find toner cartridges that qualify.

Naturally, it depends on the type of cartridge and the condition that they’re in. Different buyers may also have different demands.

There is, however, a superior standard for the toner cartridge.

I’m talking about Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) cartridges. These are toners manufactured by the same company that manufactured your printer.

If you have these in your possession, they’re liquid gold!

Why so?

Simply put, they’re the highest quality toners and will get you the best selling price.

It’s also important that your cartridges aren’t expired of defunct in any way.

After you’ve identified the cartridges that you can part ways with, you have quite a few options for selling them.

1. Sell Your Unused Toner On An Online Marketplace

Online marketplaces like eBay make it easy for you to connect with potential buyers. Alternatively, you can use Amazon or craigslist.

It’s up to you to decide which is less risky.

Create a listing on a marketplace of choice, and that’s all there is to it.

What can you do to ensure you get the best possible price

Here’s what I recommend:

Try selling cartridges in bulk, so your listing will seem more attractive to potential buyers.

Be sure to include the specifications of your toner cartridges. Who’s the manufacturer? What’s the model number? What color is the ink? The more detail you provide, the more eyes you get on your listing and the more persuasive you’ll be.

Include a photograph of your supplies so buyers can have an idea of their condition. This transparency eliminates any future problems that may arise from transacting on an online marketplace.

2. Turn In Your Unused Toner At Your Office Supply Store

Many office supply stores will allow you to turn in your unused toners for cash back or store credit.

These reward programs are a great way to save on the cost of future ink supplies. Bare in mind, large name office supply stores may have stricter qualifying criteria.

Before you turn in your cartridges, ensure that you know what qualifies or not. Also, there’s usually a maximum number of cartridges that you can turn in per month.

While this may be a bit more convenient for you as opposed to creating a listing on eBay, you need to consider all the variables.

3. Use A Website With A Buyback Program To Cash In On Your Unused Toner

The third and best option is to patronize a website with a toner buy-back program.

There are many of these available.

The best part?

It’s a simple process.

A google search of “toner buy-back program” or “sell unused toners” will give you a myriad of options.

You can then easily go to the website that you’re considering, check that your cartridges qualify, and ship it to them.

Most companies will take care of the shipping costs and will have your payout to you in record time.

I recommend comparing a few companies to decide which is best for you. Consider who offers the biggest cash back, has the quickest turnaround, and the best service.

In my experience, companies who have niched down to one particular element of toner recycling are the best bets.

In other words, you want to pick a company who specializes in unused toner recycling only.

margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-weight: bold;”>Why?

They’ll outperform other companies on price and quality of service. That’s mainly because their concentration in one area will allow them to build a stronger network within their industry.

This means that they can provide more competitive payouts for your supplies.

Are you ready to cash in on your unused toners?

margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-weight: bold;”>This should be a no-brainer.

If you have unused toner cartridges lying around, it’s an excellent decision to sell them for some cash

The savings can go a long way for your business.

The great thing is, you are not short of options.

Consider the methods discussed in the article and choose what’s best for you.

Whether you decide to use a buyback program, create a listing on eBay, or turn your toners in at your office supply store, you’ll be several hundred dollars richer.

Visit us to find out how much your toner is worth

The 5 Easiest Ways To Get Rid Of Your Toner

It’s easy to let your empty cartridge situation get out of hand. You can’t figure out how to dispose of it, nor are you aware there was even a way to save yourself some heartache and earn some money in the process.

How do you get rid of your toner – and feel good about saving the environment?

We’ve narrowed down some of the environmentally friendly ways to get rid of your toner.

(cue the super hero music) Lets dive in.

You’d really like to save the environment, but it wouldn’t hurt to make some coins too.

There’s a way.

Don’t sleep on the old school methods. Set up your free eBay or Craigslist account, upload your photos, name your price and wait for the cash to roll into your account. Craigslist is still a pretty decent option for posting goods and services. eBay has always been a great tool to sell your old stuff.

Why not try your hand at selling your used or unopened toner? You could make anywhere from $15 to $50 hard cash.

Be sure to include lots of details about your toner. Don’t forget to add stuff like manufacturer and model numbers, the colors you have available and adding an image is sure to seal the deal and earn you more money.

2.Sell on Apps like OfferUp

Gone are the days where apps collected dust on our home screens. If you’re living anywhere but under a rock, you use at least one app per day.

So maybe selling your toner on an app might be more your cup of tea. Craigslist can seem a bit outdated and the interface isn’t the most attractive so using an updated app with a smooth user friendly interface might be more appealing.

Some common apps where you can sell your toner includes Cloud5, OfferUp, Letgo and Mercari are all great starting points to look into. Just post your item photo online and wait for the money to come.

3.Donate to schools.

You don’t have to be on your kid’s PTA board to give back to their schools. All those toner cartridges hanging around the house can be put to good use.

If they are empty, encourage the school to join an ink recycling program that would encourage them to recycle ink and toner.

Programs like Cartridges for Kids and Inkjets for Education help promote recycling in schools with their buyback program. They pay the schools cash for the empty cartridges.

It’s a great way to get kids involved and a great introduction to a lesson in keeping healthy habits to save their environment.

In one of our recent posts, we talk about the importance of getting kids involved in recycling. It’s never too early to start.

Recycling Rewards Programs

Your favorite office supply store gets it. People like rewards.

And people really like rewards that help them save. Office Depot, Bestbuy, and Staples all run recycling reward programs to help customers save.

The way it works is you purchase your ink or toner, recycle them in-store after use and save cash the next time you shop. Pretty useful if you have empty cartridges in bulk as you earn more if you have more.

Don’t forget to ask your local office supply store about their possible recycling reward programs.

Toner Buy Back Programs

At Toner Connect, we make selling your unused toner easy. All you have to do is fill out our online form, get an offer from one of our helpful sales associates and if you accept, we send you the shipping label to print in order to ship.

And yes, shipping is on us!

We offer competitive rates and want our customers to get the bang for their buck.

This is easy money people. Don’t waste time and cash in on your empty toner cartridges. Take a look at our helpful guide explaining what kind of toner you may have and what it means. You’ll be saving the environment and have your pockets a little fatter. Our previous post talks about the importance of buyback programs so be sure to take a second thought before tossing out your toner – you may be tossing out cash.

Toner Connect’s New Toner Pick Up Policy

Toner Connect is launching a new pick-up service for our wonderful customers within a 50 mile radius from our Passaic, NJ office. To qualify for an on-site pickup and on the spot payment via check, your order must meet the following guidelines:

Pick-up Guidelines

1. The pick-up MUST be at a valid and verified business location.

2. All items MUST be genuine name brand in perfect condition – no generic, open or damaged items.

3. You MUST submit your quote 48 hours before a pick-up. Last minute pickups with less than 24 hour notice will be deducted a $20 late service fee and only approved, if no prior pick-ups are scheduled.

4. Pick-ups will only be done Monday through Thursday between 10AM and 2PM.

5. All orders MUST be prepared to be inspected and loaded into the company vehicle once the driver arrives.

6. Any additional items that have not been quoted prior to pick-up will NOT be paid out during the pick-up. These items MUST be dropped off at the warehouse, inspected and payment will be mailed via check only if we decide to purchase those items.

Order Requirements

Miles: 0-20 for orders of $500 or more

Miles: 21-30 for orders of $750 or more

Miles: 31-40 for orders of $1000 or more

Miles: 41-50 for orders of $1500 or more

Any orders that are over 50 miles must be shipped to us at: 90 Dayton Ave, Unit 4J, Passaic, NJ 07055

Up Your Small Business Game: Why You Need to Recycle Used Toner and Sell Unused Ones

There’s one thing all businesses have in common: they’re constantly looking to improve. Be it big or small, established or startup, owners and business leaders have an ever-present ear to the ground on how to make their company better. But did you know what you do with your old and new toners can be apart of that?

From health tips to increasing the company budget, your toner is the key!

Used Toners

The Healthier Choice

Refilling your ink cartridges has become a staple for saving money in the office but refilling your toner? Not such a great idea. Why? One word: Carcinogens.

According to the Health and Safety Office of Portsmouth, toner powder has a pretty bad rep when it comes to our health. Classified as a “nuisance substance”, it can lead to eye irritation, headache, and itchy skin. Prolonged exposure can lead to more severe reactions. Long story short, leave refilling toners to the experts.

Get The Most Out Of Your Toner

Before you toss yet another toner cartridge in the dustbin, make sure you’ve gotten your money’s worth. There are a couple tricks you can do to make sure your toner is completely out:

Shake your toner cartridge to loosen the dust- A lot of the time the powder just needs to be stirred up again.
If the toner light appears, try putting electrical tape over the sensory hole on the non-gear part of the cartridge- A lot of printers will be fooled into thinking there’s more toner and keep printing.
Clean the opening of the toner with rubbing alcohol

For a more in-depth look at how to get the most out of your toner and other printing tips, click here and here.

Recycling

With the idea of recycling and reducing the amount of carbon footprints on the rise, it’s easy and smart for businesses to do their part and get involved. One of the best ways to do so is to safely recycle a piece of equipment that can cause some serious environmental harm: your toner cartridge.

Did you know your cartridge can take over a hundred years to decompose? Not to mention the petroleum we’re leaking back into the ground.

So what can you do about it?

Two things actually. While it’s not as simple as tossing the empty cartridge into the nearest recycle bin, it’s will be rewarding to know you’re doing your part to save our Earth.

The first thing you can do is check to see if your toner type can be resold to companies that refill them and resell them at a cheaper rate. Toner cartridges have the capacity to be used over and over again before they show any sign of wear and tear and it will save them a needless trip to the landfill.

The other thing you can do is recycle it properly. As mentioned before they can’t be taken by your regular recycle company because they require special attention. However, office supply stores such as Staples or OfficeMax usually have a toner recycle program and can take them off your hands when you’re done with them.

Unused Toners

Remember when we mentioned we have a way for you to bring in some extra revenue for your company? Well, we weren’t joking. In fact, you most likely have your source of income sitting on a shelf right now.

Toner Buyback Program

At Toner Connect, we offer to buy back your unused toners and not only free up some storage space but also get cash in your pockets. So how does it work? Easy.

The 411

Toner Connect has a fast and simple way to get rid of your unwanted cartridges and it involves you earning money. There are certain qualifications your cartridge needs to meet in order to be considered for buyback. They are:

Undamaged and unopened
From the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer)
The toner has not reached 3 years past its expiration date.

For the full explanation of how our buyback program works, check out our post here. When you’re ready to find out if your cartridge qualifies, simply fill out our form and we will get back to you with the rate we can offer.

The only thing easier would be to print your own money which by the way is a federal crime so we don’t recommend it.

Starting a small business is definitely no easy feat. From image development to becoming profitable to possibly joining a “What have I gotten myself into?” support group on Facebook, we at Toner Connect understand. We’ve been there. We are there. And we want to see you succeed.

If you have any questions or concerns, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us here or visit us at TonerConnect.net.

How Long Should Ink Cartridges Last?

One of the main questions people will ask when they purchase ink cartridges is how long the cartridge will last. To answer this question properly, you must first look at different aspects of the cartridge. Understanding this information will help you determine how long you should expect ink cartridges to last.

Why Does Cartridge Size Matter?

The first thing to look at is the actual size of the ink cartridge. Ink cartridges come in many different sizes.

There are even several different sizes available for one particular brand and model of printer. Larger cartridges could give you better value and last longer.

When you are looking at this information, make sure you keep an eye on the volume of the cartridge rather than the capacity

Choosing a cartridge that has a higher volume will naturally last longer than one with a lower volume.

CartridgeWorld , if your cartridge is an all-in-one model, you can expect for it to run out faster than if the colors were separate. Most of the time, when a color runs out in one of these cartridges, it will stop working altogether.

How Does your Printer Affect the Cartridge?

Your printer and how often you print could also be an indicator of how long your ink cartridge will last.

According to WiseGeek , different types of printers and print jobs require different types of ink.

Many printers are limited on the size of cartridges and only offer one solution. If this is the case, the
overall quality and performance of your printer could determine the lifespan of your cartridge.

For example, lower quality printers often have a lower capacity cartridge to go along with them. This will cause them to not last as long.

Likewise, if you print frequently, you can expect to run out of ink sooner rather than later.

The amount of printing you do on your printer is a key factor in how long your cartridge will last as is the type of documents you print.

Printing high-quality color photos will drain an ink cartridge much faster than printing black and white documents.

Surprisingly, there are actually things you can do to make your ink cartridges last longer. In fact, you can learn quite a few tips from the Frugal Living website.

When it comes to maintaining your cartridges, start by allowing the printer to clean the nozzles and print heads every time you change out a cartridge.

This will help you avoid clogs, which could affect your print quality and make it harder for an ink cartridge to function properly.

In addition to this, make sure you use your ink cartridge regularly. Avoiding use of your printer could cause some of the ink to dry up or for clogs to occur.

This could mean you will need to run the printer through its cleaning system, which will use up more of the ink.

If you are experiencing an issue with ink residue, a damp cloth can sometimes be the answer. However, you will want to check with the manufacturer’s suggestions for this issue because some cartridges may require a different type of maintenance.

For those planning to store their ink cartridges, you should make sure they are stored in a place that is dark and dry.

You will also want to take note of the expiration dates so that you make sure you use them before that time. Turning the cartridges on their side is also the best decision because it can help keep clogs from occurring.

According to ColorTonerExpert, there are several other things you can do to store your cartridges properly. Here are some of the top tips they suggest:

1.) Avoid touching the print head

2.) Keep the Tape

3.) Know the shelf-life

4.) Keep it in the package

5.) Avoid the light as well as heat

Can you Revive a “Dead” Cartridge?

When your ink cartridge runs out of ink, one of the first things you may attempt to do is shake the cartridge.

For some cartridges, this could allow you to print several more pages of print. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

This is actually a tactic that can be easily used for toner cartridges, which are filled with powder instead of regular ink.

Over time, the powder can become lodged in the cartridge and shaking it could dislodge some of it.

For other types of cartridges that use ink rather than powder, it is much less likely that you will be able to revive a cartridge by shaking it.

Sometimes, however, it is possible to print a few more pages by simply cleaning around the area where the ink is dispersed.

You can also try this trick to unclog an inkjet cartridge.

This is all information that can help you determine how long you should expect your ink cartridge to last.

The important thing to remember is that you should follow the instructions the manufacturer gives you in order to give it the longest lifespan.

In the end, following this information can allow you to get the most value from the ink cartridges you purchase.