Printer manufacturers can help control pollution

In an era where waste management is a big issue, would it not be in the interest of everybody if printer manufacturers like HP were to come forward to encourage refilling and encourage reuse of the printer cartridges, toners, ink tanks etc and provide proper ink, toners and refill kits?

Today, printer manufactures are actively engaged in using technology to restrict consumers from being able to refill the cartridges used in their printers. This is, obviously, done to force to users to buy the expensive "original" cartridges by the manufacturers.

For the users this means...

• Increased cost of printing per page.
• Piling up to avoidable waste in the form of empty cartridges.

The empty cartridges are contributing to the huge plastic waste that is compiling around the globe. My little office has 2 HP inkjet printers for the last 3 months and there are already 8 empty cartridges lying around waiting to be disposed.

The use of refilling not only drastically brings down the per page cost of printing, it also reduces a major waste management problem significantly. Besides this, if original solutions are available from the manufacturers, themselves, consumers like me will not have to use alternate low quality solutions from the grey market.

I strongly believe, it is high time governments take a pro-active step and convince the printer manufacturers to promote refilling in a bid to help reduce the wastage generated in the form of printer cartridges.