subject: Empty Express: Details of Empty Cartridges and Inkjets [print this page] Empty Express: Details of Empty Cartridges and Inkjets
When collecting or buying empty cartridges, it is important to be able to tell which are the most valuable. Virgin empty inkjet cartridges are by far the most valuable printer cartridges based on their size and weight. That is, if you have a box of empty inkjet cartridges versus a box of empty toner cartridges of the same size, the empty inkjet cartridges will be much more valuable.
That's not to say that collecting empty toner cartridges is not a worthwhile pursuit. It is just that with collection and shipping costs, it is much more productive to collect empty inkjet cartridges than empty toner cartridges.
So how can you make sure you are collecting the most valuable virgin empty inkjet cartridges? It is pretty easy to tell because the virgin or OEM empty cartridges will have the manufacturer's label and no punctures that could represent refilling. They should have no other markings such as a third party manufacturer's remanufactured label. The virgin empty cartridge will have one of the OEM's labels, such as HP, Canon, Lexmark, and Dell brand names.
Additionally, collecting empties from end-users rather than from other sources tend to result in much higher quality empties at the time of inspection. If you are collecting empties from companies that have already inspected them, then the shipment is much less likely to pass any other company's inspection process as well. It is usually very easy to tell from the inspection report whether this was a shipment of empties collected from end users or a shipment that represents someone else's rejected empties.
Commonly people ask if they can mix their shipments of empty ink and empty toner cartridges in the same shipment. Unfortunately it is very easy to think that empty ink and toner can go in the same box. However, this is not the case. There are entirely different inspection processes for ink and toner cartridges. If the warehouse team has to spend extra time separating out the ink and toner cartridges from one another, it is much more difficult and takes more time to inspect them. That's why we highly recommend that empty ink and toner should be separated into different boxes.
