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More Thoughts on Greenwashing

Published 15 April 2008, 10:16 PM

Ian Lomax
Marketing Program Manager for LaserJet Cartridges

Given Alison Graves’ recent post on greenwashing, I thought it made sense to highlight some activities that HP supplies have done to help protect our environment.

  1. HP started recycling print cartridges in 1992, and since then we’ve recycled over 10 million cartridges, keeping 257 million pounds of material out of landfills.
  2. No original HP print cartridge returned to HP for recycling ends up in a landfill.  Unfortunately, we’re not set up to recycle competitor cartridges, but we will recycle every HP cartridge returned.
  3. Original HP Inkjet cartridges now contain recycled plastic, including recycled plastic drinking bottles and recycled plastics from Inkjet cartridges, completing the recycling loop.
  4. We have reduced the number of plastic resins by half since 1992, and reduced the overall number of components in print cartridges by more than a third. This makes it easier to recycle the cartridges, thus saving more energy.
  5. HP has achieved ISO 14001 certification for its environmental management program.
  6. HP offers PurchasEdge points for recycling your cartridges, points that can then be used to receive free HP merchandise like new printers, cameras, scanners, etc.
  7. Recent packaging innovations have reduced the size and weight of our packaging, resulting in a savings of over 28 million pounds of CO2 in 2007 alone.
  8. Original HP supplies qualify as recycled products under the State of California SABRC standards.

HP has a long commitment to being environmentally responsible and we don’t just pay it lip service.  A lot of companies these days (HP included) are quick to highlight their environmental activities.  But before you make your choice, make sure that you research any company you plan on doing business with before trying them out.

For more information on HP’s recycling programs, or to learn more about Planet Partner supplies recycling, please visit www.hp.com/recycling

If you are a member of PurchasEdge and are not receiving points for recycling your cartridges, contact your reseller to learn how you can start receiving points.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP
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Comments

Ian, recycling 10 million catridges in 16 years is nothing to be proud of. According to Andy Lippman, an industry analyst at Lyra Research, HP produces more than half of the 500 million ink-jet and 75 million laser cartridges sold annually in North America alone. Considering that about half of the empties those ink-jet cartridges replace are simply thrown away, it's no wonder HP seeks to clean up the e-waste mess it perpetuates.
# Tuesday, April 22, 2008 04:25 AM by harderfaster101

Thanks for your comment.

You’re right. We can do better. We’d like to see all of the cartridges we produce recycled.

But I can’t force every customer to recycle. We are trying to do everything possible to make it as easy as possible for customers to recycle our cartridges, from envelopes included with the cartridges, to bulk returns for businesses. We’ll even give you credit for returning your cartridges which you can use to upgrade to newer, more efficient printers.

The end user has to take responsibility for his or her own actions. And unfortunately there are still lots of people out there who aren’t willing to take the extra time it takes to set up a recycling program, or pop their cartridge in an envelope and send it back to us. That's one of the things I hope my blogging can do, create awareness. As a result, I hope that more and more of our customers will start recycling. Thanks for your comment and for drawing attention to this important issue.

Ian Lomax

# Wednesday, April 23, 2008 04:44 PM by enterprise_printing_team
Hi Ian, Thanks for your reply. I don't see how HP can say that their products are designed with the environment in mind when such a saturation of cartridges are dumped on the market. You say that you'd like to see all HP cartridges recycled but how would this be possible in the first place? Who can recycle 300 million catridges annually? Knowing that the majority of these cartridges are going to end up in land fill, how can HP honestly say they are doing the right thing by our environment? Regards, Dave.
# Tuesday, April 29, 2008 01:20 AM by harderfaster101

Hi Dave,

We don’t have the capacity at the moment to recycle every cartridge we produce, but we have and will add capacity as needed to keep up with the demand as more and more people start recycling. We don’t want cartridges ending up in landfills any more than you do. But getting all the cartridges recycled requires people to actively choose to recycle them and not throw them away. We’re doing our best to make this easy for everybody from consumers to large enterprises.

None of our competitors has a recycling program that I’m aware of. If a remanufacturer takes back a cartridge they can’t rebuild (pretty much anything that’s been rebuilt once already) what do you think happens to it?

Again, we’re not perfect and I’m not claiming we are. But we’re doing our best, and we hope more and more customers will choose to recycle.

Regards,

Ian

# Friday, May 02, 2008 05:30 PM by enterprise_printing_team

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