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PrinterTechs Green Initiative

Recycling and reuse are important parts of our environmental stewardship. It’s unfortunate that so many electronics, including printers, end up in landfills. Society in general hasn’t placed a high importance on recycling partially because it doesn’t pay, or at least doesn’t pay much. The value of recycled materials can swing widely depending on supply and demand, and at least in printers, the value of the recyclable materials is far less than the labor cost to disassemble or “demanufacture” the printer. This is why there is typically a processing fee to recycle electronics, computers, and printers.

At PrinterTechs, we receive pallets full of used printers that must be sorted. Most are rebuildable or can be used for parts, but some have no value or use. Everything that can't be used is sorted for recycling. Plastics, circuit boards, metals, wiring and cabling, can all be recycled. This is a time consuming process; most printers take 20 to 30 minutes to "demanufacture" into the recyclable components. When enough recyclable material is gathered we call in an ISO 14001 certified recycler to pick up the materials for recycling.

Buying a refurbished Laserjet or buying parts to fix a broken Laserjet not only saves you money but also helps the environment and supports the US economy. When a new printer is manufactured there is an increase in the carbon footprint, raw materials used, and energy expended. And since all new printers are manufactured outside of the United States, buying a new printer supports foreign manufacturing. All PrinterTechs refurbished printers are rebuilt right here in Middleton, Wisconsin.

Laserjet vs. Inkjets: Many people have switched to inkjet printers for home use. They work reasonably well for low volume printing but the cost of ink cartridges is very expensive compared to toner cartridges. You will soon spend more than the cost of the printer on ink. Over-priced ink cartridges are a huge profit center for printer manufacturers. They practically give away the printers in order to get your ink business. Because inkjet printers have such a low build-quality and replacement cost, they aren't designed to be repaired but thrown away if they break. Even if you wanted to fix it, parts aren't available.

Businesses on the other hand use mostly mid-sized or large LaserJets because they have an excellent build quality and can easily last 10 to 15 years. Toner cartridges for Laserjets print at a fraction of the cost of an inkjet cartridge, and parts and maintenance kits are readily available for Laserjets. We have repaired Laserjets with over a million pages of use. You'll never get that kind of durability out of an inkjet! Overall a quality Laserjet is a much greener printing solution than buying a cheaper inkjet that you end up replacing every 2 or 3 years.