Local supplier seeks to set new standards in Recycling
| Published: 26th February 2008 22:33 |
The 'Reduce, Recycle and Reuse' philosophy has been taken to heart by a local trader who wants to see containers for recycling printing ink cartrides up in Orpington Town Centre.
Chandra Sharma, owner of Cut Price Office Supplies is a seasoned campaigner for recycling ink cartridges. "The facts speak for themselves." he said. "Did you know that plastic used in printer cartridges can take over 10 centuries to decompose? And that according to current statistics, only 5% of empty printer cartridges are being recycled- so this means that 95% are simply discarded and sent to landfill sites."
Chandra wants to encourage the recycling ethos in schools and businesses. "It takes 2.5 ounces of oil to make a new inkjet cartridge,so when you consider that one school can use 300 ink cartridges in a year, there is over four gallons of oil that you saved by recycling. A medium sized business can use nearly 2,000 ink cartridges in a year, so the potential for saving oil would be colossal."
While recycling ink cartridges clearly helps the environment, Chandra likes to pass on the benefits to charities, "We pay up to 50p for each cartridge returned. This is a great tool for fundraising. We use the money we get from recycled cartridges to support Bromley Mencap, cutpricecartridges.com's charity of choice for this year.
With each cartridge capable of being refilled four times, there are only gains to be made in recycling. With facilities already available to recycle paper, plastics, glass and tin cans, it will soon be possible to recycle ink cartridges using containers in the shopping centre, or immediately using the container outside the Cut Price Office Supplies shop at 32 Chislehurst Road, Orpington."
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