Circular Economy Circular Economy

HP’s Recycled Plastic Ink Cartridges Helping Company, Customers Reduce Impact

HP announced last week that more than 75 percent of its ink cartridges and 24 percent of its HP LaserJet toner cartridges are now manufactured with “closed-loop” recycled plastic.The company says this represents a 50 percent increase in the number of HP ink cartridges manufactured with recycled content in the last year, giving customers more options for purchasing cartridges made with recycled content.As part of the company’s Living Progress strategy for driving human, economic and environmental progress, HP is helping customers reduce their environmental impact and reduce the overall environmental impact of product use.

By Sustainable Brands | Published 10 years ago | About a 4 minute read

HP announced last week that more than 75 percent of its ink cartridges and 24 percent of its HP LaserJet toner cartridges are now manufactured with “closed-loop” recycled plastic.

The company says this represents a 50 percent increase in the number of HP ink cartridges manufactured with recycled content in the last year, giving customers more options for purchasing cartridges made with recycled content.

As part of the company’s Living Progress strategy for driving human, economic and environmental progress, HP is helping customers reduce their environmental impact and reduce the overall environmental impact of product use.

“Our customers want high-quality printed content for both business and personal documents — without breaking their budget or compromising their commitment to environmental responsibility,” said Stephen Nigro, SVP of Inkjet and Printing Solutions at HP. “From cartridges with recycled plastic to energy-efficient printing products and waste-reducing packaging design, we are offering customers solutions that make it easy for them to enjoy cost and resource savings in their everyday lives.”

HP’s cartridge-recycling process uses recycled plastic from returned HP cartridges as well as plastic from other sources, including recycled plastic bottles and plastic apparel hangers to create new Original HP ink cartridges.

Kept 566 million returned HP cartridges out of landfills since 1991.
Used 2.5 billion post-consumer plastic bottles to manufacture new HP ink cartridges since 2005.
Incorporated 1.1 million pounds of recycled apparel hangers into the most recent expansion of the recycling process.
Manufactured more than 2 billion Original HP ink and toner cartridges made with recycled content.
Delivered recycled plastic from HP’s closed-loop recycling process with a 33 percent lower carbon footprint and 54 percent lower fossil fuel consumption in its production than new plastic.

HP offers customers in 50 countries and territories free and convenient cartridge recycling through its HP Planet Partners program. Customers can return used cartridges through HP’s retail and reseller partners by dropping cartridges off at one of 9,000 drop-off locations around the world or find out how to return cartridges directly to HP by visiting hp.com/recycle. The site now offers region- and language-specific information and is optimized for mobile use, making it quicker and easier for customers to recycle used cartridges.

These advances join a portfolio of printing products and services that further enable customers to reduce their environmental impact:

Consumers can achieve a 70 percent reduction in their carbon footprint related to ink purchase and disposal by participating in HP Instant Ink, an automated supplies replenishment program.
Business users can choose products from the HP Officejet Enterprise X series to achieve energy savings and use 50-90 percent less cartridge and packaging material than color laser printers.
Office users also can save energy and money by choosing HP LaserJet products that offer an average of 11 to 35 percent energy savings during printing through HP’s energy-efficient toner. Additionally, features such as Auto-On/Auto-Off and PowerSave mode help customers achieve further energy savings while HP’s SureSupply program enables streamlined purchase of cartridges with recycled content.

This progress is part of HP’s ongoing commitment to bring our people and technology together to solve society’s challenges, empowering our customers — from consumers and small businesses to enterprises — to make more responsible choices when printing.

Speaking of reducing its footprint, HP announced in March that global packaging company YFY Jupiter will use straw waste from Chinese farms to manufacture HP’s corrugated cardboard and molded pulp packaging. According to HP's Linda Chau, the process to create this packaging uses up to 40 percent less energy and 90 percent less water; emits 25 percent less CO2 than traditional methods; and since the packaging is lighter than wood-based molded pulp, it will cost less to ship.