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You’re out enjoying a leisurely lunch
when your PDA chimes its reminder that you have a doctor’s appointment
at 2 PM on the other side of town. No problem , you tell yourself,
I’ve got time to finish that proposal tonight. Your cell phone
rings—and the caller I.D. function lets you know it’s
your boss. Sudden change in plans, she says: her client meeting has
changed to first thing in the morning and she needs the proposal before
the end of the day. You cancel your appointment, spend the afternoon
researching on the web, and email the finished document to the branch
office so your boss can print and go over it during her late evening
flight. “Another crisis averted thanks to technology”
becomes the theme of your after work run. Ain’t electronics
grand?
On the one hand, yes: today, more information is available more quickly
than ever before, and documents that once took weeks to travel from
coast to coast can be transferred instantly with the click of a mouse.
On the other hand, too many of us probably spend more time communicating
by computer than we do in person, and cellphoneitis has infiltrated
every aspect of life. Whether you’re on a bus, stuck in traffic,
dining out, or taking an aerobics class at the gym, chances are pretty
good that someone within earshot is having a chat on a cell.
Along with the societal implications of this shift in how we communicate
come major environmental effects.
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Cartridge Overload
 Consider,
for example, that the proliferation of email has actually increased
the amount of paper used in offices by almost 40%. There’s a
whole lot of printing going on—and that means that a whole lot
of inkjet and laser printer cartridges are being consumed.
Can you guess how many inkjet and laser cartridges get thrown away?
The latest estimates come in at about 375 million every year. That’s
a lot of landfill space, and since the plastic cases are pretty indestructible,
it’s valuable room just going to waste. For a cartridge to decompose
will take about 1000 years.
Bet you didn’t know that producing inkjet and laser cartridges
uses up large quantities of oil. It’s a fact: every inkjet cartridge
made uses about two and a half ounces of oil, and every laser cartridge
takes about three and a half quarts!
Disposable Phones
 And
then there’s the cell. Every day one of the mobile phone companies
has a new offer—more free minutes, family sharing plans, phones
that takes pictures, act as Game Boys, or capture audio notes. This
leads to constant anxiety over which plan is best for the more than
128 million American users of cell phones—and a tendency to
switch carriers on a regular basis. Which means a constant turnover
of phones. On average, cell users replace their phones every 18 months—which
means that more than 65,000 tons of cell phones get “retired”
every year. It is estimated that more than 500 million unused cell
phones are sitting around our homes and offices just gathering dust.
Most will probably end up in the trash bin or dumpster—which
is not only wasteful, but a serious environmental concern.
Without even getting into the resource intensive manufacturing side
of the equation, here’s food for thought: all those discarded
phones not only take up landfill space, they contain persistent toxic
chemicals that are harmful to the environment and don’t degrade
over time. Lead, cadmium, mercury and other toxics can leach out of
landfills and into groundwater supplies, while toxins from phones
that get incinerated instead of landfilled can pollute the air—and
eventually come back to land as particles when it rains.
A Win-Win Solution
So, taking all of the above into account, it would seem to make pretty
good sense to reduce production of new cartridges and cell phones
and reuse those that already exist. Well, that’s something that
everyone can do. Cartridge and cell phone recycling is becoming big
business — and it’s good for the Earth.
Now, through a partnership with Inkjet Recycling Company, GreenWorks
can benefit every time you recycle your inkjet and toner cartridges
and your cell phones!
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 Here’s
how it works:
For Cartridges
Visit the Inkjet
Recycling Company web site and look at the latest
Cartridge List to make sure your cartridges qualify.
Download the IRC/GreenWorks
Cartridge Donation form (PDF File, ~110K. You need Adobe Acrobat
Reader to read this file. Don't have Acrobat Reader? Download it here
for free.), print and fill it out.
If you have less than 20 inkjets or less than 4 toner cartridges,
you can send them to:
GreenWorks Cartridge Recyling Program
1420 Walnut Street, Suite 1304
Philadelphia, PA 19102
We’ll pack them together with others and send them in.
If you have 20 or more inkjets or 4 or more toner cartridges, call
IRC toll free at 1-877-333-7677 for instructions on free shipping
directly to them.
When you donate your cartridges and accompany it with the form, IRC
contributes the amount on the list to GreenWorks to help us continue
our programs.
For Cell Phones
Visit the Inkjet
Recycling Company web site and look at the latest Buyback
List (pdf file) to make sure your cartridges qualify.
Download the IRC/GreenWorks
Cell Phone Donation form (PDF File, ~300K. You need Adobe Acrobat
Reader to read this file. Don't have Acrobat Reader? Download it here
for free.), print and fill it out.
Note: even
if your phone isn’t listed, IRC will accept it and dispose of
it properly.
Send the completed form and your phone (include accessories such as
charger, spare batteries, etc.) to:
GreenWorks Cell Phone Recyling Program
1420 Walnut Street, Suite 1304
Philadelphia, PA 19102
We’ll take it from there. As with the cartridges, IRC donates
the amount on the list to us, so we can continue our work.
You get rid of junk, you help the environment, and you support our
efforts to inspire others to get involved in working for the environment.
Everyone wins!
Pass on the news! Email this page to a friend and ask them
to do their part.
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We greatly appreciate the donation, but if you’d rather
be paid cash for your cartridges or phone, you can
send them directly to IRC and get a check back in the mail. Contact
them for more information on that.
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