If you’ve purchased an HP brand ink cartridge since 2005, chances are that it’s one of the 555 million cartridges manufactured with resin recycled from old cartridges and plastic water bottles. And if all goes according to plan, soon, not only will they be able to recycle a significant portion of the cartridge’s components, the additional amount of plastic reclaimed from the old cartridges could jump by over 50%.
Back in 2000 HP partnered with the Lavergne Group, a plastics recycling and manufacturing company located in the in Anjou, Quebec in the northeast industrial area on the island of Montreal, known for their innovation, materials recycling and regeneration expertise. Both were aware that this would be a challenge – taking 5 years, but they perfected an original recycling “recipe”.
This meant combining clean plastic cartridge material, other sources of plastic and just the right suite of additives to bring the materials back up to their original properties.
“We needed to create a resin that functions at the molders and in cartridges just like virgin material to meet stringent quality requirements,” says Jean-Luc Lavergne, President & Founder, Lavergne Group.
Closed Loop Program
To further their cause to protect the environment, in 2008 HP set up their Closed Loop program. Since 1991 they had already recycled over 300 million inkjet and LaserJet print cartridges through the HP Planet Partners return and recycling program. And now, they also had also had control of the recycling process.
“It’s a system that begins and ends with the customer”, says Dean Miller, Program Lead for HP’s Inkjet Supplies recycling team.
Today, Miller explains, that customers can leave used HP cartridges at various drop-off locations, including some Staples stores or request a free prepaid shipping envelope from HP.com/recycle. Returned cartridges are then sorted and sent to primary recycling facilities and put through a multiphase recycling process.
First, the cartridges are shredded and then put through a secondary refining process to separate the plastic from the other contaminants. The plastic is then cleaned and processed using Lavergne unique processing recipe, which is then turned into pellets and ready for the molders to create new cartridges. The loop closes – the process is complete when the customer purchases the cartridge containing the recycled material.
“The plastic is the same quality and reliability as a virgin plastic, so it can be used in new cartridges without any impact on reliability,” says Jean Gingras, Environmental Program Manger, Hewlett Packard Printing and Imaging Group.
Effective, But Not Efficient
So far the system has been very effective, managing to keep old cartridges out of the landfill sites while putting to good use the astronomical number plastic water bottles consumers seem to love to use. (Studies show that in the US 29 billion are used each year, but only 20% are recycled).
According to HP, the Lavergne facility is currently processing approximately 1 million pounds of RPET (Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate) thermoplastic polymer resin per month for use in manufacturing Original HP inkjet cartridges.
However, the process is not as efficient as it could be. With the plastic being shredded, the stream of materials created by the current process contains contaminants- bits of foam, labels, copper and flexible circuits from the embedded print head in addition to the plastic that needs to be further refined for it to be of any use.
This 2-step process means additional time, transportation costs and a larger carbon footprint to carry materials to a secondary recycling plant.
Plastic in Pilot Process
Cartridge Disassembly Prototype
HP is constantly seeking ways to enhance current offerings and develop new products, programs and processes to further reduce environmental impact. They realized that they could more effectively separate plastic and metal materials of returned cartridges and yield a higher recyclability factor by disassembling the cartridges, then shredding the plastic, rather than shredding the entire unit.
Miller adds that disassembly also gives more discreet pieces – bodies, lids, precious metals and less residual plastic loss.
“It would also be a cleaner process- no label or flex circuit in the shred and you can recover 50% more plastic,” says Gingras.
It’s interesting and “tres cool”, watching the disassembly prototype machine work. First, the cartridge is loaded into the machine. The label is then shaved off; the top is then cut off exposing the ink-soaked foam, which is then removed. It’s then followed by the removal of the flex circuit and print head from which copper can be recovered. The plastic housing is then cleaned then shredded all in one go – thus showing the proof of concept.
According to Lavergne, a machine like this can be scaled and installed in various regions, reducing the need to ship cartridges long distances to a centralize place.
Of course, with a process currently in place, new equipment would require not only a process change but also substantial capital investment.
But there is a another side to the streamlining the recycling process.
“(It also) opens door to using recycled content in other products like print heads and other printer parts,”, says Gingras.
Visit HP Eco Solutions To find out more about, get tips and tools on recycling or find out where you can get your free postage paid envelopes for return.
So, what are you doing today to keep the Earth green?
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