5 Creative Ideas With Used Printer Cartridges That Can Not Be Recycled

Every year, statistics show that millions of printer cartridges are dumped as trash and added to landfills. The environmental damage caused by these landfills keeps on increasing day by day and the environmental activists blame it on the waste and pollution generated by industries. If this problem isn’t addressed, we’ll soon see ourselves in huge trouble with the world still finding its way out from a dump of these used printer cartridges. But while it’s good to practice proper printer cartridge recycling, there are some ink cartridges that cannot be recycled, the reason being its manufacturing restrictions or technicalities. Remember that a printer cartridge can only be reused or recycled for say a maximum of five to six times and then it can’t be used for printing anymore.

A big problem that arises is: what can be done with these old printer cartridges, which can no longer be recycled or reused in the future? Recycling centers and printer manufacturers will not accept them and putting them in the garbage will only add to our growing landfills. It becomes a question hard to answer! Well, let’s come up with a solution. There are ways to avoid accumulating these empty printer cartridges and adding to our troubles. All you need is a little creativity! Brush up your art and craft skills and use a lot of imagination. Discussed below are some fun projects to help you reuse your Used Printer Cartridges in creative ways.

1. Add a cartridge wind chime: Use any used toner cartridge to act as a base for a wind chime. Simply attach recycled items, such as used printer drums – (it is the drums that would give you the tingling sounds!) or empty printer cartridges with strings. Hang this near a window or a door and enjoy —a nice, eco-friendly wind chime!

2. Make a shade against the sun: use used printer cartridges with translucent covers (especially some of the inkjet cartridges have such covers and arrange them horizontally and vertically to form a sheet. Use a wire to tie them up so that the sheet doesn’t break. Use different colors to paint directly on the printer sheet, place it as a shade against the sun and lo and behold! This forms a curtain, which will protect you not only from the sun, but also becomes a beautiful art piece as the sunlight then beams through the various colors.

3. Make a table lamp out of these used printer cartridges: Choose a printer cartridge that has bright, fun colors or paint them. Now, open the used cartridges using a screwdriver. Place a low-wattage bulb inside. It’s advisable to ask a handyman to help you with these. You can stick several of these lit cartridges. Or you can stick one on a stand to make a main desk lamp. Caution: Remember to keep these lamps away from carpeting and never place objects on top of these printer cartridge lamps as these are light weight.

4. Use used printer cartridges to make magnets : Leave your creativity loose and try to paint printer cartridges with your favorite colors. You can even use other items to make these look more interesting like small stones and other sequins. Buy some magnets from any hardware store. Stick these magnets onto the used cartridges using strong glue and stick them on your refrigerator.

5. Make a chandelier out of your used printer cartridges : Using the translucent cartridges and arrange/ wire them into a circular shape with the help of a mechanic to get attached the cartridges and then add a bright lamp into the middle of the lamp. The result, a bright and arty chandelier! You can make it look creative and unique by adding your crafty ideas. But before you start this, let me warn you that : Each of these is carefully cracked open using power tools, drilled, wired up, and turned into a glowing box of light! Caution: Be careful with the temperature as you should be careful about the plastic melting and causing damage if it’s overheating.

It’s true when they say about one man’s garbage being another man’s treasure. With a little paint and a lot of imagination, you can help in reducing the quantity of cartridges thrown away in landfill. As you can make a difference by cleaning your e-waste and creating easy to make useful items from them.