This is how you can dispose of your old printer cartridges

Your old printer has had its day, but you bought too many cartridges in stock? We explain how you can dispose of or even sell your old or empty printer cartridges.

In 2022, around three quarters of all private households in Germany (76.1 percent) owned a printer. This puts the devices in eighth place in the Ranking of the technical equipment in German householdsjust ahead of the laptop with 75.5 percent.

Most printers for private use are equipped with ink cartridges. But what happens to them when they are empty or the printer is obsolete but there are still cartridges? We will show you how to dispose of or sell your old or empty printer cartridges.

How to dispose of old printer cartridges

Printer cartridges – like all other electronic devices – have no place in your household waste. Because chips are also installed in the small ink tanks so that they can contact the printer.

But what to do with discarded or empty printer cartridges? As with so many devices, recycling is the key word here. Because individual components can often be returned to the economic cycle.

For example, you can dispose of your ink cartridges at municipal collection points. Recycling depots or the pollutant mobile are available for this. You can easily find locations for your region by searching the internet.

In order to dispose of especially old printer cartridges, there is also a red bin in some federal states. You can do the locations on this map seek.

This is how you can reuse your old printer cartridges

But electronics stores are also legally obliged to dispose of old printer cartridges for you. This also applies to supermarkets and discounters, provided they occasionally have electrical appliances in their range.

Many printer cartridges can now also be refilled. For example, you can buy sets online to fill up at home yourself.

Many shops now also offer this service and refill your empty ink cartridges.

What happens to cartridges that are still full?

If your printer has given up the ghost, but your pantry is still full of old printer cartridges, you can easily sell them on the Internet. This works very simply, for example, via portals such as classified ads.

In the meantime, however, various service providers have also specialized in buying full ink cartridges in order to then sell them again.

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