The HPEORTONER take-back program is not open yet. The page below sets out how it is intended to work; the items are the ones that have to be decided before we can accept a single cartridge. We would rather show you the gaps than announce a program we cannot yet run.
What to do with your empties today is at the bottom of this page.
Why bother
A spent cartridge is mostly engineering plastic, metal and residual toner or ink. In household waste it is landfill for a very long time; collected properly, the housings and components can be recovered. It is also the one part of buying cartridges where the effort is small and the alternative is genuinely bad.
We are not going to attach a number to the environmental benefit. Every figure we could quote here would be someone else's estimate about someone else's process.
How it is intended to work
Not set yet.
1. Collect your empties
Keep spent cartridges in the box the replacement arrived in. Toner cartridges should stay upright and sealed in a bag — they hold loose powder. Inkjet cartridges should go in a bag as well, print head down.
2. Get a return label
Not set yet.
3. Send them back
Not set yet.
4. What you get for it
Not set yet.
What we can and cannot accept
Intended to be accepted: empty inkjet cartridges, empty laser toner cartridges, drum units, and maintenance or waste-ink boxes — any brand, whether or not it came from us.
Intended to be excluded: cartridges that are leaking or physically broken open, bulk ink bottles, printers and other hardware, and anything still full. A cartridge that is not actually empty is not a recycling question — if it is faulty, it is a warranty matter and it is worth more to you that way.
Offices, schools and print rooms
Volume collection is a different operation from mailing back three cartridges, and it is handled with the rest of a business account. See HPEORTONER for Business.
In the meantime
Until this program opens, your empties do not have to go in the trash:
- Every major printer manufacturer runs a free mail-back recycling program for its own-brand cartridges, with a label you print at home.
- Most large office-supply retailers accept cartridges for recycling in store, several of them with store credit attached.
- Many municipal recycling centers take printer cartridges as e-waste. Check what your local program accepts before making the trip.
Note that manufacturer programs generally take back only their own brand, so compatible cartridges usually need one of the other two routes.
Questions
Email support@example.com — and if you want to be told when the program opens, say so and we will let you know.