Christa Kowalczyk asked:


With the help of laser cartridges, you can save important raw materials, waste and energy. There are a lot of ways you can do this and even recycle laser cartridges.

The environmental battle cry is to “reduce, reuse and recycle!”

You can save important raw materials, waste and energy by using your laser cartridges again. In fact, there are approximately 44 million laser cartridges that are bought every year in Europe. 95% of these laser cartridges in the UK are thrown out after only one usage. Every cartridge has 1 to 2 liters of oil. It also has aluminum and steel. Every time you repeat using these cartridges, you will save these important, non-renewable resources and energy.

Almost all laser cartridges are thrown off in landfill areas. In the UK, the number has already reached 10,000 tons of material every year. The materials in the cartridge, such as plastic and other are non-biodegradable, does not decompose even for many centuries. This means that every time you reuse a cartridge, you can save on waste landfills.

Hence, it is also a good decision to reuse or refill your toner rather than replace them. This can definitely cut down on your toner cost. This is especially true once you cut down on your toner refills.

There are even companies who can provide these services for you.

You can save money by refilling your own printer. You can buy toner refill kits and do the job yourself. Replacing your printer cartridges is a bit expensive. More often, it will cost you more than the price of your printer.

Using a bottle of refill toner can fill your cartridge. It will save you up to 87%. It can be used often as well. You will be able to save more because of these toner refills. Of course, it will also depend on the kind of printer you have. It also varies on how often you need to buy these. Normally, customers can save around 50% on the price of their printer cartridges.

It is good that you can refill fax and photocopier toner cartridges also. Just don’t scrap it, restore it with fresh toner powder and it becomes easy to refill.

Here’s how:

- Just unplug and pour!

In other laser printers, fax machines as well as copiers, refilling toners is as easy as removing the filler plug. It is also as easy as opening the shutter and pouring it in with the latest funnel.

- Just unscrew, unplug and pour!

In other laser printers, before you reach the filter plug, you need to unscrew it first.

- Just melt hole and pour!

Sometimes it’s a bit harder to open the filler hole. With the use of a special tool, you can melt it and open your own filler hole within the cartridge. It only takes a few seconds for the cartridge to become filled.

- It is mess-free and quick.

It takes only few minutes to refill. The kit contains everything you need for a quick, mess-free, professional job. By using the top seals of the funnel towards the bottle, it will be very easy to have the contents poured-in.

Instructions are provided, along with detailed steps for most of the models. It also contains some information on preparing the work surface and handling the powder without mess.

Will it work?

Yes, it does! The advantage of filling this up with powder is that you won’t disturb the inner working of the cartridge.

How often?

A new or remanufactured cartridge will stand for at least another two fills before losing its quality. Those with no imaging drum can last for 5 or more fills.

Does it have good quality results?

Almost all powders are formulated for all models. They are tested and guaranteed, bringing no damage to your printers. The quality should also be the same as when it ran out the first time you filled it.

Thus, you can remain in control of the quality of your print by reusing your cartridges. Cartridge components will degrade in time. You can also decide when the time has come to find a new one. The unused powder can also be used in another cartridge.

Jim Rjindael asked:


Has anyone seen a photocopier being opened and ink poured in – they all used to be refilled like this – businesses used to buy big bottles of toner ink and simply top up their cartridges. Laser printers where exactly the same – you’d buy a big bottle of ink powder and top up the cartridge when needed. All the laser toner cartridges had little ***** openers so you could refill them easily from ink bought from any printer supplier.

Alas those days are gone – the printer manufacturers realized that it was much more profitable to keep reselling you a new cartridge rather than allowing you to easily refill the laser toner cartridges. Gone went the removable stoppers as they sealed the unit and many manufacturers even started adding a small chip disabling the toner cartridge when it had printed so many pages. They are in fact actively artificially reducing the life of the cartridges in order to sell more replacements.

We have all have been brought up with capitalism so we know how the markets work and the profit motives of these companies. The environmental effect of this is less apparent though.

To produce a new toner cartridge from scratch takes approximately 1-2 liters of oil – so if we you refill a toner cartridge you are instantly saving nearly 2 liters of a limited resource.

Two Liters Doesn’t sound too much ?

Well possibly it isn’t but there are approximately 44 million new laser toner cartridges used every year in Europe – the majority of these can be refilled and used again. Over 73% of these cartridges are used once only ! The environmental impact of this is huge especially as we are discarding cartridges that are easily reused – every time we refill a cartridge we save the environmental impact of producing another one and also save ourselves the cost of buying it!

So how to refill a toner cartridge ?

Well its extremely easy – it varies from cartridge to toner cartridge but generally takes no more than a few minutes and certainly doesn’t require any special skills. It’s important to get the right instructions for a specific printer as this makes it refilling the toner extremely straightforward.

Go to an expert who can sell you the exact kit for your printer and also who will answer any queries you may have about How to refill a toner cartridge.

Apart from the environmental impact – refilling your toner cartridge yourself also save a lot of money – sometimes up to 87% of the cost of a brand new cartridge. The beauty of refilling as opposed to re-manufacturing is you’re actually not physically tampering with the working parts in the cartridge – all you’re doing is pouring in new ink toner into the cartridge.