Epson is a company that recognises the importance of the environment, and so encourages their customers to return used Epson printer ink cartridges, toner ink cartridges and other Epson products for recycling.

You can help save the environment by sending back your used Epson printer ink cartridges including inkjet cartridges and toner cartridges.

Used Epson printer ink cartridges are recycled through a licensed recycling facility which evaluates the components and then shreds the products. After the shredding process, the materials are separated into ferrous, non-ferrous and plastic components and sent to other mills for further processing.

There is a fee for this service which includes shipping and recycling costs. Customers taking advantage of this service will receive a voucher for each item returned. This coupon may be redeemed on your next purchase at the Epson store. Ensure you check the Epson site for any updated details.

A toner cartridge is an expensive piece of equipment so you want it to last as long as possible. There are a couple of things you can do to extend the life of your toner cartridge which will inevitably save you money.

Firstly, the easiest way to make your toner cartridge last longer is to change your printer settings. If you are using Windows go to Start and select Settings and then Printers and Faxes. This will vary depending on which version of Windows you are using but you should also be able to find it by going to Control Panel and selecting Printers and Faxes. Right click on your printer and select Printer Preferences. Again this will vary depending on your version of Windows so you might need to search around for it.

Once you have found your printer preferences you need to look for an option to print in draft quality. Printing in draft quality will reduce the quality of your print but on the other hand it will save on toner which will extend the life of your toner cartridge. Depending on the type of business you are running, you probably will find that printing in draft quality is quite sufficient for most print jobs.

Printing in draft quality can extend the life of your toner cartridge, but if you can’t find an option to print in draft quality, then look for a similar option. Some printer preferences have a Quality/Speed option. If you select ‘Quality’ the print quality is obviously better, however it prints slower and of course uses more toner. If you select ‘Speed’ then the quality is less but the speed at which it prints is greater and the amount of toner it uses is less.

There is another simple way to extend the life of your toner cartridge. When your printer lets you know that you are out of toner don’t just replace the cartridge. Take out the toner cartridge and shake it from side to side a few times and then place it back in your printer. You want to distribute the toner evenly along the cartridge so make sure you give it a good shake. This has been known to extend the life of toner cartridges for up to a ream of paper. At the very least it will give you a window of opportunity in which to purchase another cartridge.

If you’ve ever had to change the toner in a copy machine that doesn’t use toner cartridges, you have intimate knowledge of just how messy and nasty a job that can be. Black toner powder clings to everything, including your fingers, your face, your clothes and everything in the office. Laser printers that use toner cartridges have made that messy job a thing of the past – but there’s a lot more to toner cartridges than just saving on your dry cleaning bill.

To understand how technologically advanced and ingenious the toner cartridge is, you have to first understand how a laser ‘writes’ on paper. A precise explanation could take an entire book – or more.

In simplified terms, here’s what happens when you print a page on a laser printer:

1. The information on how to set up a page is sent to your printer from your computer. Since the printer doesn’t actually understand letters, your computer and the printer controller exchange the information in a series of codes that break the letters and images down to ‘dots’. Each ‘dot’ is an area to be printed.

2. The printer uses a laser to shine a bright light (laser) on a rotating drum in a pattern that corresponds to the pattern of dots that its stored in its memory. Wherever the light shines on the drum, it leaves a positive electrical charge – like a magnet.

3. As the drum continues to turn, the electrically charged area passes over a reservoir that holds powdered toner. The magnetized areas attract the toner from the opening in the toner cartridge, creating a temporary image on the drum.

4. At the same time, the printer is creating a similar electrically charged ‘image’ on the paper that’s to be printed – but with the charge reversed.

5. The paper is pulled through a set of rollers that runs it a precise distance below the charged drum. Because the charged areas of the paper are the opposite of the charged areas that hold the toner on the drum, the powdered toner that the toner cartridge deposited on the drum is drawn to the paper, creating the image.

6. The paper is drawn through a pair of heated rollers that melt the toner and fuse it to paper.

Rather than ink, toner cartridges are filled with a fine powder that’s made from plastic and pigment. The pigment provides the color – the plastic serves as a ‘binder’ when it melts into the paper, making a smudge-proof print.

The toner cartridge for most printers contains the toner, roller, a mechanism for delivering the charge and often, software so that the printer can understand the computer’s instructions.

Better color laser printers use a complete printer assembly, including toner cartridge, for each of the four colors that the printer uses to make the millions of colors possible.

While laser toner cartridges may seem expensive, each cartridge prints thousands of pages, making them less expensive in the long run than expensive ink jet cartridges.