Help Save The Environment! Recycle Your Inkjet Cartridges. It’s FREE and EASY as . . . Call us for FREE postage paid envelopes. Place your empty ink jet in the envelope.   Drop it in the mail. Contact Alison at 234-2323 ext 112 for details. (We recycle cell phones too) Or email Alison for a "Cartridge/Cell Phone" pick up. We can pick up empties with a supply delivery. We will take your empty HP laser toners in the box along with UPS return label and UPS them back for you. You MUST have RETURN LABEL that comes on instructions. Your recycling efforts can make a difference! Along with our Recycler, who donates a portion of their proceeds to “City of Hope”, we will be donating 100% of our proceeds to a local non-for-profit organization. We have selected for one year, May 2008 through April 2009, “The Belleville Area Humane Society”, our local no-kill shelter. So by recycling you will be helping in more ways than one: Help People, Help Animals, Help the Environment. Thank you! Enviromental Facts: Mobile Phones In the US, cell phone use has surged from 340,000 subscribers in 1985 to approximately 170 million in 2004. The average American cell phone user owns 3 or more cell phones. The average life span of a cell phone is only 18 months. It is estimated that 130 million cell phones will become obsolete and discarded each year. It is estimated that up to 75 percent of obsolete cell phones are stockpiled in drawers by people who don't know what else to do with them. By 2005, 500 million old cell phones will be stockpiled in homes across the country. Toxicity Cell phones contain many toxic materials such as arsenic, mercury, lead, copper, zinc and brominated flame retardants which would be released into the air and groundwater supply if disposed of in landfills - creating threats to human and animal health as well as the environment. Current Recycling Over 70% of Americans do not know that they can recycle their old cell phone. Less than 5% of obsolete cell phones are refurbished or recycled. In a recent survey, only 2.3% of Americans recycled their old cell phones and 7% threw them in the garbage. Surveys suggest that 90% of Americans would recycle their cell phone if it was convenient. Enviromental Facts: Ink Jet and Laser Toner In 2005, over 700 million new cartridges will be sold in the US. (650M ink jet and 70M laser) In 2005, over 60 million new cartridges will be sold in Canada. (59M ink jet and 7M laser) In 2005, over 500 million new cartridges will be sold in Europe. (525Mink jet and 49M laser) In 2005, over 100M remanufactured cartridges will be sold worldwide. (62M ink jet and 42M laser) Toxicity Two and a half ounces of oil are used for every ink jet cartridge produced. Three and a half quarts of oil are used for every laser cartridge produced. Each laser printer cartridge, on average, consists of approximately 2 1/2 pounds of plastic - primarily acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) - along with steel, aluminum, and rubber. Manufacturing each printer cartridge requires approximately threequarts of petroleum to power the manufacturing process that converts oil and natural gas to plastic. Each cartridge contains petroleum as "embedded" energy (i.e. the fuel value of the plastic itself). It takes the energy equivalent of approximately one-half gallon of oil to make one 2 1/2 pound cartridge. A new laser cartridge uses an average 3 quarts of oil to produce and adds 2.5 pounds of industrial grade plastic to the waste stream Current Recycling By some estimates, nearly eight ink and toner cartridges are thrown away in the U.S. every second.   [= approx 240 Million per year] Industry analysts estimate that a spent ink and toner cartridge can be reused between four and seven times. Over 86% of all inkjet cartridges sold in this country are thrown away according to industry statistics. Laser cartridge recycling is a very large industry employing thousands of people and yet over 50% of the cartridges are still deposited in landfills every year. This translates to 350 million cartridges that end up in landfills or approximately 875 million pounds of environmental waste. Stacked end to end, these discarded printer cartridges would cover a distance of over 24,000 miles -- enough to circle the earth! Half a gallon of oil is conserved for every laser cartridge returned. With the United States consuming approximately 700 million gallons of oil a day, we are helping to conserve a valuable natural resource and reduce greenhouse emissions. Remember: oil is a nonrenewable fossil fuel, and it can not be remade. In the next seven years, if all the laser and ink jet cartridges are saved from landfills, a bridge can be built from the Earth to the Moon -- 223,000 miles!