If your workplace, business, community group, university, or school uses more than three (3) inkjet, toner cartridges or toner bottles in a month you may be eligible for a Cartridges 4 Planet Ark collection box.
You can call 1800 24 24 73 or complete the registration form.
We've made recycling your printer cartridges easy with a workplace collection boxes and over 3,500 public drop-off locations around the country.
If you don't have a collection box at your workplace or school or don't print very often you can drop them off next time you're at participating retailers.
Existing Members
Once the bag inside your box is full of cartridges, tie it off with one of the cable ties provided. (For easy access the spare bags and ties should be left in the bottom of the box).
RETURNING YOUR CARTRIDGES
To return your bag of cartridges, send it back through Australia Post using the Reply-Paid sticker affixed to the bag.
You can either:
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Take the bag to your internal mail room to be processed along with your other mail. Your Australia Post contractor will pick up the bag and it is sent through Reply Paid post at no cost to you; or
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Take the bag to your local Australia Post outlet and it will be returned via Reply Paid (no cost to you).
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Metropolitan customers can also book their collections online through Close the Loop's website or by calling 1800 24 24 73 to arrange a courier pick-up within five days.
We would like to encourage you to book your collections when you have two or more full bags ready to go. This ensures the process is economically more efficient and better for the environment through the reduction in carbon emissions from transport. You need to know your company ID number to arrange a bag collection online. If you don't know your company ID number, please email info@closetheloop.com.au and it will be sent to you.
More information about returning your existing Cartridges 4 Planet Ark box can be found here:
Printer cartridges are made up of a complex combination of plastics, metals, foam, ink and toner. Therefore they are suited to the collection systems and sorting faciliites used for home collections by councils.
Throwing them into landfill represents a waster of resources and can impact the environment.
Some of the environment benefits of recyling your cartridges include.
- Divering waster from landfill. More than 3,440kg of cartridges are diverted from landfill every day through the program
- Recovering resources. Cartridges can be reprocessed or recycled to make new products from the plastics, metals and inks.
- Saving water and energy. Making most products from recycled materials uses less water and energy than making them from new materials
Whats Accepted
All inkjet cartridges, toner cartridges and toner bottles can be placed in the Cartridges 4 Planet Ark box.
Accepted items includes:
- Toner cartridges
- Inkjet cartridges
- Laser cartridges
- Unused cartridges
- Toner bottles
- Fuser and drum units
- Print heads
- Containers, collectors, and kits
- Environmental ™ pens
Returning Your Cartridges
If you would like a public collection box for your customers, residents, the general public or school community to drop-off their cartridges in you can register for a 'public site' box by calling Close The loop on 1800 24 24 73. Please specify that this a to be a box for the community not an internal workplace box. Once you have received your collection box you can download our promotional resources to inform your colleagues about the program.
At Work
If your workplace, business, community group, university, or school uses more than three (3) inkjet, toner cartridges or toner bottles in a month you may be eligible for a Cartridges 4 Planet Ark collection box.
You can call 1800 24 24 73 or complete the registration form.
All registered Workplace Collection points can receive Resource Recovery Certificates that outline the weight of cartridges collected and returned.
These certificates can be used to report on the positive environmental impact that your workplace has achieved by participating in 'Cartridges 4 Planet Ark'.
They can also be used to motivate and encourage staff and clients to recycle even more. To request a certificate, simply email CSTeam@closetheloop.com.au
Example of a Resource Recovery Certificate
Our participating manufacturers, Brother, Canon, Epson, HP or Kyocera, cover the cost of collecting, transporting and recycling their own cartridges as well as promoting the program to workplaces like yours and to the general public.
When you put a cartridge from a supporting brand - Toshiba, Fuji Xerox Australia, Samsung, Sharp, Dell, Konica Minolta or Lexmark - into one of our boxes, that manufacturer covers the cost of recycling their cartridge. Some of these manufacturers also have their own collection programs.
But if you put a cartridge from any other manufacturer or a compatible brand in a collection box, these are not paid for but the cost is borne by Close The Loop and the program generally. You can help us make sure we can continue to provide a recycling service by reducing the number of non-participating manufacturers' cartridges in your collection boxes.
If your workplace uses lots of these cartridges you could:
Contact the manufacturer to see if they run their own collection program; or
Switch machines to one of the manufacturers who are taking responsibility for their cartridges.
This program has been established to collect and recycle cartridges from end users only. We cannot accept printer cartridge waste from commercial recyclers or brokers.
In the Community
If you would like a public collection box for your customers, residents, the general public or school community to drop-off their cartridges in you can register for a 'public site' box by calling Close The loop on 1800 24 24 73. Please specify that this a to be a box for the community not an internal workplace box. Once you have received your collection box you can download our promotional resources to inform your colleagues about the program.
What happens to cartridges
All of the cartridges put in to one of our boxes, whether in a workplace or a retail collection point, are sent back to Close the Loop ™ in Melbourne. Once there, they are hand sorted and their brand and type recorded. Many of the laser cartridges are sent back to the original equipment manufacturers for their re-manufacturing or component recovery programs.
- The inkjet cartridges, toner bottles and drum units are processed through the patented, Australian-made Green Machine, which reduces the cartridges to smaller particles that can be more easily separated.
- Inkjet cartridges are processed through another machine, which also uses patented world-first technology.
- Magnets are used to remove ferrous (iron-based) metals, while eddie currents are used to remove aluminium.
This waste stream is a complex mix of potentially valuable and/or hazardous raw materials needing state of the art equipment for safe processing and handling.
The end result of this process is the recovery of 'raw' materials. These 'secondary raw materials' are further filtered, upgraded and then used instead of virgin materials in normal manufacturing to make new products. The ultimate aim is to return the raw materials back to the original equipment manufacturer for reuse in new cartridges.
All of this is achieved with zero waste going to landfill.
