Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment

We primarily sell spares online. Selling spares keeps existing equipment functioning and we think the result is a double win both for the environment and the economy.

WEEE

The European Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment (WEEE) aims to reduce the impact of products on the environment. One point is to oblige companies (known as 'Producers') which manufacture, import or re-brand electronic products, to take back and recycle WEEE from business end-users once the product reaches the end of its life.

We offer our customers the opportunity to recycle their old electrical items.

MindMachine will take back any device equivalent to that you have purchased within 28 days of purchase. You should inform us first and and may then deliver the item to us in any way that suits you.

We will also purchase or take equipment where you have not purchased a new item in certain circumstances - usually where it is of interest to us for technical reasons or parts recovery.

We primarily sell parts, not complete systems, and they go all over the country. Because of the value of the materials compared to post and courier charges it may not be economically (or environmentally) viable to send parts back, however you are welcome to do so if you wish.

Printer Components

Some cartridges, fusers and other electronic components do not count as "electronic" because they contain no active electronic components. This should not be a problem as there are several organisations collecting used cartridges as feedstock for the cartridge recycling industry. Old laser printer cartridges are typically worth between 50p and £ 2 for this purpose. Many charities and recycling companies provide cardboard recycling bins to gather material. Most will also take used fusers and ETB Belts which are worth a similar amount although their recycling route may be different.

Recyclers generally do NOT want waste bottles because they contain nothing but used toner - which has little or no value. Actually the bottles are often re-useable but there is probably no market for them.

Some print cartridge manufacturers like Lexmark sell cartridges on the understanding that they will be returned only to them. They may provide a post-paid return label with each item. Part of the motivation is environmental, it helps counteract the problem created by shipping proprietary cartridges. Part of the motivation is clearly to deny a reliable supply to competitors who would refill them.

If printer manufacturers were truly concerned about the environmental effect of their products they would design printers to use bottles or bags of toner and standardised developers and drums. They would encourage local refilling and provide authorised materials. Printers would have easily replaceable scanners and formatters so that older machines could be updated to contemporary standards.

If they do not go into a cartridge recycling bin cartridges and fusers generally have a small value for metal recovery and possibly for plastics. Plastic recovery has generally been uneconomic because newly made oil-derived product has only cost a couple of dollars per kilo but recent changes in commodity prices should have changed this. Waste recycling plants will probably pick out cartridges - the metallic content will direct the device into an appropriate recovery stream. Plastics can usually be identified by a recycling symbol with a number in it - this is the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) Resin Identification Code.

Fusers are mostly metal with a plastic cover intended to keep user finger out of the hot innards. If fusers are disposed in general waste they almost certainly will be picked out because of their ferrous content and the metal will be recovered. Even if it were to go to landfill a fuser is largely or entirely metal and very stable plastic components so it will do little harm.

It is a pity for fusers to go into the general waste stream. Many of the components can be re-used to make a refurbished device. However, at the moment, refurbishing companies are only prepared to pay amounts similar to those for cartridges for "fuser cores" and that won't cover the cost of postage. Refurbishers will collect and even pay small amounts for fuser cores but usually in quantities of 20+ per pick up.

Paper feed rollers are essentially throw-away ephemera. A roller contains about the same amount of plastic as a pop-bottle, divided between a polystyrene or ABS core and an isoprene / butadeine soft plastic roller. The plastic components of a roller are not usually labelled with their type, making recycling difficult. Where waste recycling plants are equipped to handle PTFE bottles they will see relatively few rollers amongst the stream of food wrappers, soap bottles, pens, toys, furniture, ornaments and other plastic junk. A few manufacturers supply tyres rather than whole rollers but this does make changing the part more difficult.

We think the best answer to a lot of these problems might be more standardisation of parts but there is a danger of that reducing innovation. Standardised parts would still wear out, but there would be a sufficient number of similar things to simplify refurbishment or recycle decisions. An alternative is to improve the recovery of materials from the waste stream. A further alternative is to extend the life of printers. If the average printer were to last 8 years rather than 3-4 the materials use and waste would be dramatically reduced.

Extending the life of printers is the primary service we aim to provide.

Find more information on WEEE recycling, and locate your local recycling centre, at www.recyclenow.com.