Worldwide, the urgent environmental issue of climate change and emission reduction is driving the necessity for the careful sorting and recycling of everyday waste as a normal daily procedure.In response to the need to be seen reducing their own carbon footprint, some global brands of printer cartridges, for example Hewlett Packard, have been helping their customers to reduce waste by manufacturing more than 1 billion ink cartridges made from recycled plastic. Consequently, it is estimated that a 22 per cent reduction of carbon footprint and a 69 per cent reduction in total water use together with public recycling, has prevented some 160 million HP ink cartridges from ending up in landfills.Unfortunately, not all consumers have got the message and to date, with just 10 per cent of inkjet cartridges used each year, are being actively recycled. As a result, many millions of cartridges are still ending up in landfill sites or are incinerated each year. Yet, there are now very simple and straightforward methods to recycle with many charitable organisations and trusts in support, who will help with disposing of a spent ink or toner cartridge, bringing them much needed funds, helping to reduce costs and also contributing towards environmental conservation.Local area authorities and councils have also established extensive recycling procedures for an exhaustive variety of domestic and commercial waste, which includes empty cartridges.However, a widespread and probably the most cost effective method is simply to only purchase recycled or compatible printer cartridges, which are comparable to own manufacturer brand names, easily purchased online, and almost certainly to be even cheaper than most high street suppliers.When purchased from an established, reputable online supplier of leading global manufacturer brands, the printing quality of compatible cartridges is of an extremely high standard and are highly unlikely to cause any damage or printing problems. Despite of manufacturer warnings, a quality supplier will only offer guaranteed recycled printer products.The universal requirement for printing a hard copy will always exist even though it is being increasingly encouraged to only print when absolutely necessary and therefore, the use and responsible disposal of ink cartridges will continue to be a vital environmental issue for the foreseeable future.It has been estimated that by reusing an ink cartridge five times will save an estimated three litres of oil. Furthermore, a 10 per cent target would also mean a reduction of 20,000 to 28,000 tons in the volumes of plastic sent to landfills each year.