At my work we use a lot of toner cartridges. Unfortunately we’ve tried to get them refilled but often they end up leaking and are of poor quality. So eventually we gave in and purchased brand new toner cartridges. Unfortunately this left us with a problem. Old cartridges that needed to be disposed of. Fortunately the post office across the street was able to take our cartridges. Of course, they were in no mood to keep this up forever, particularly as I started making very regular appearances dropping off cartridges. One day they just stopped taking cartridges.

Since then I have amassed quite a collection of empty cartridges, hoping to find somewhere who will accept them and take them all in at once. On Friday I called Office Works at Garden City to check they were still accepting cartridges. But were they? No! The box had just disappeared.

So I went straight to the cartridges for ark website and discovered that any business could collect cartridges and arrange to have them recycled, for free! Seeing as we were “any business” I quickly signed us up and soon we’ll be receiving a large box to put our cartridges in!

Over the weekend I began to wonder if there were other ways we could recycle at work and what options were available. The most obvious resource that we throw away plenty of is paper. Surely someone was collecting paper for recycling, ideally for free. Unfortunately despite the website saying it was still free it seems as though you now have to pay for this service (which is fair, after all, you pay for your usual waste disposal).

That said, the prices weren’t that bad. There was a $22 setup fee and $2.20/week for a wheelie bin to collect the paper. Then it was $11 get it picked up. Alternatively you could get two cardboard boxes for $5.50 each (and they are then yours to keep).Paper that is recycled was then supposed to go to companies including (and this is what their website lists):

• Kellogg’s
• Kleenex
• KFC

Am I the only one who spotted that the paper is going to the KKK?

All jokes aside, it’s a pretty good idea and hopefully I’ll be able to convince management of that. Or at least get them fighting with Mater to provide some sort of recycling service.