The top of many news reports are stories about climate change and how this is effecting us today, which is why both individuals and the business community must honour their environmental obligations. Even the smallest actions - from switching off office equipment and lights when not in use to recycling waste where possible - can help businesses reduce their carbon footprint.

In Northern Ireland, 95% of municipal waste is dumped in landfill sites. However, available sites are becoming scarce particularly in Belfast due to its larger population. It is a similar situation in the south of Ireland as the existing landfill network, which receives more than 90% of waste, is coming under increasing pressure. Some major sites in Dublin, Cork and other areas have already been forced to limit the intake of commercial and industrial waste. One of the key actions that should help ease the strain on landfill sites is the reuse and remanufacture of laser printer toner cartridges and inkjet cartridges.

Irelands businesses and consumers discard thousands of cartridges daily and most end up in choked landfill sites, where it can take 1,000 years for a single laser toner to decompose as the casings are made of engineering grade plastic. Thats nearly twice the age of the Blarney Stone.
As it also takes a significant amount of oil to make the plastic for cartridge casings - and with oil becoming an ever precious non-renewable resource - it makes sense to reuse rather than discard spent cartridges. Every year Irish Smart Cartridge franchisees boost the green effort by recycling, refilling and remanufacturing thousands of laser and inkjet cartridges for reuse.

Customers also save money by buying remanufactured and refilled cartridges at up to 60% of the cost of original cartridges. If a healthier bank balance is not enough to encourage businesses to go green, new EU regulations introduced last October may well tip the balance. The directive means that landfill sites no longer accept untreated waste, which means waste must have gone through a physical, thermal, chemical or biological process, including sorting. The aim is to help increase recycling and recovery and reduce potentially polluting emissions from landfill sites. For example, many dumped cartridges still contain small quantities of ink, which can be hazardous and toxic, and traces of cyanide pollutants that can contaminate groundwater.

In addition, franchise business Smart Cartridge customers save money by offering remanufactured and refilled cartridges at up to 60% of the cost of buying original cartridges. All these products come with a no-quibble guarantee that they will match the originals in terms of performance and yield. Any treatment must change the characteristics of the waste either to reduce its volume, reduce its hazardous nature, facilitate its handling or enhance its recovery. The new regulations apply to office waste so it is no longer acceptable to put toner cartridges into general office waste. Duncan Small and Phil Calvert started up the Smart Cartridge franchise in Ireland almost four years ago and, as such, have been at the forefront of the recycling revolution.

The introduction of these new regulations will create much more business for Smart Cartridge franchisees. However, this area is far from new to us as we have been a major driving force behind the green revolution since the company started in 2001. One of our main aims is to encourage people to recycle and re-use spent cartridges, which not only saves money but also helps save the environment.

More than two million inkjet cartridges are dumped each year in Ireland alone, as well as millions of laser toner cartridges, so it stands to reason the environment will benefit if more are saved from landfill sites. Franchisees also proactively encourage local businesses, schools, offices, clubs, the healthcare sector and other organisations to refill and re-use their empty cartridges.  We also offer branded recycling bins, which firms throughout the country use to collect empty cartridges - we take these cartridges to be refilled for re-use by hundreds of Irish businesses. Our franchisees can look forward to a green future.

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