We know its tough to gain perspective on what a little ink cartridge means to the planet, but with over 650 million ink cartridges being thrown away in U.S. landfills alone this year, it means a lot! Take a look below!

1. It takes nearly a gallon (3-1/2 quarts) of oil to produce a new laser printer cartridge, and 2-1/2 ounces of oil to manufacture each new inkjet cartridge.

For every 100,000 laser printer cartridges recycled, we can save:

22,000 lbs of aluminum

40 tons of plastic

87,500 gallons of oil 


2. In the United States, printer cartridges are thrown away at a rate of 23 per second and this is expected to increase by 12% annually.

3. The total weight of cartridges thrown away each year in this country is equivalent to 67,612 Ford Explorers or 112,463 Volkswagen Beetles.

4. In a single year, the world’s discarded cartridges stacked end-to-end would circle the over earth three times.

5. A laser printer cartridge thrown into a landfill can take up to 1000 years to decompose (while components made of industrial-grade plastic will take over a thousand years).