ECO-PRENEURING

It pays to recycle. Just ask the world’s top ink refilling retailer in a $55 billion industry.

By Dan Scheerer

An educated consumer is Dan Scheerer's best customer. Eco-friendly cartridge refilling is the way to go to prevent waste and landfill dumping of these petroleum-laden polluters. E-waste can cause health hazards for generations to come and Dan is changing all that while making money in the process.]

Dan Scheerer of Duxbury, MA is the Master Franchisee of New England. Prior to starting this venture Dan worked in a family business in the manufacturing industry. In fact, he never expected to be in a franchising situation until he came across this opportunity and was impressed with the consumer demand for refilled printer cartridges. Under his watch, the very first New England location opened in June 2004 in Weymouth, MA. and now additional locations are open in Scarborough ME, West Warwick RI, Nashua NH and Portsmouth, NH. New locations are under construction in Salem, NH and North Providence RI. As the world’s fastest growing ink refilling retailer in the $55 billion printer cartridge industry Cartridge World is expanding rapidly in the New England market with projections for 75 stores over the next 5 years.

Inkjet and laser printers have become standard office equipment for small business owners, with hundreds of millions purchased each year. But with their constant use comes the equally constant expense of replacing printer cartridges, a cost that can add up in a surprisingly quick manner.

As the price of printers continues to drop – now as low as under $100 for a decent quality unit – the real cash register shock comes when you’re made to pony up $40 or more to replace ink cartridges. But new technology has caught up with an increasing consumer demand for a more cost-effective and environmentally-sound approach to printer cartridge replacement, with inkjet and cartridge refilling becoming one of the fastest growing areas of the office technology market.

The need for this type of business is statistically proven. Today, a mere 27% of all cartridges sold in the United States are re-filled, with the remainder disposed, contributing thousands of tons of plastic and metal to landfills each year. Refilling printer cartridges not only keeps these products out of landfills, it reduces the amount of petroleum required to produce new ones.

Here are a few more eye-opening pieces of information to consider:

It takes about a gallon of oil to make a new laser cartridge.
Nearly eight cartridges are thrown away each second in the United States alone. More than 350 million printer cartridges are discarded in landfills in North America alone, with that number increasing by 12% annually. That translates into a current 70% throw-out rate.
It can take up to 450 years for a laser cartridge thrown into a landfill to decompose, with some industrial grade plastic components taking more than a thousand years to totally decay.
Every remanufactured cartridge saves about 3.4 pounds of solid waste from infiltrating landfills.
Remanufacturing cartridges reduces pollution, as currently almost 90% of empty cartridges are incinerated or dumped in landfills. It’s a terrible waste.
If one year’s total of all discarded printer cartridges worldwide were stacked end-to-end, they would circle the earth over three times! It’s time for a change.

(Editor’s note: Dan Scheerer is the Master Franchisor of Cartridge World New England, with headquarters in Norwell, MA. more information, contact Dan Scheerer at 167 Washington Street, Norwell, MA, 781-878-6003 or visit www.cartridgeworldusa.com.