Yes, you can recycle that.
One of the most frequent questions sent to sustainability@wustl.edu is “How can I recycle my office’s ink cartridges?” Depending on the brand of cartridge, there are different instructions. Most involve printing a pre-paid postage label and sending them back to the manufacturer. However, thanks to a new program offering by our friends at FedEx, you can also bring Canon brand inkjet and toner cartridges to either of the WashU FedEx locations:
- Danforth Campus: 6465 Forsyth Boulevard (inside of the Mallinckrodt Building).
- Medical School Campus: CSRB Link, 4939 Children’s Place, Suite 2231 Saint Louis, MO 63110
If you don’t want to drop off Canon cartridges, you can order a pre-paid shipping label and send them back directly.
If your cartridges are not Canon brand, they can probably still be recycled. Each of these cartridge brands have recycling programs:
- Konica Minolta
- Kyocera
- Hewlett Packard
- Xerox
In addition, any cartridge ordered from Office Essentials (on Marketplace), Office Essentials will pick up the empty cartridge.
Please visit this link to learn about the specific recycling procedures for each vendor.
Don’t forget to seek out remanufactured, recycled, or refilled cartridges from reputable sources when purchasing – we need to support circular systems on both ends (purchasing and disposal).
As a reminder, you can save money, paper, and ink by reducing printing when you can! Best practices like printing in grayscale when possible, reducing paper margins, and printing double-sided are considered best practices for less impactful printing practices. But the greenest print job will always be the one you avoid! By filing electronically, doing business via email, using digital signatures, and making documents available via box or a website, WashU students, staff and faculty have drastically reduced our printing footprint. Keep up the great work!
