The City of Knoxville's Public Service Department and Cartridge World have teamed up to conduct a pilot project recycling printer and laser ink cartridges at three of the city's Recycling Drop-off Centers.

Containers - supplied by Home Depot - for the used containers are already in place at those recycling centers.

The project will last from three-to-six months according to John Homa, the city's Solid Waste Project Manager. He said the results during that period will determine whether there is enough interest in the effort to continue the cartridge collection or even expand the recycling program. 
 
"We could possibly add a few more centers to the project if we find it to be successful in the first few months," Homa said. "There are literally hundreds of millions of cartridges going into landfills across the country each year." 
 
The pilot project is being conducted in city recycling centers located at:

5303 Broadway in Fountain City 341 Parkvillage Road near Cedar Bluff 400 State Street, the Downtown Recycling Center 
 
"We are excited to be part of this pilot project," said Scott Landry, the owner of Cartridge World, located at 9430 Northshore Drive. "All materials collected will be recycled or disposed of properly by our store and business partners." 
 
According to some figures supplied by Landry:

1. It takes about a gallon of oil to make a new laser cartridge.

2. Almost 8 cartridges are thrown away per second in the United States alone.

3. In North America alone, over 350 million cartridges per year are discarded in our landfills, and that number increases by 12 percent annually.

4. A laser cartridge thrown into landfill can take up to 450 years to decompose. Some components made of industrial grade plastics will take over a thousand years to decompose.

5. Every remanufactured cartridge saves nearly 3 and 1/2 pounds of solid waste from being deposited in landfills.

6. 70 percent of used printer cartridges throughout the world are currently being thrown out.

7. In one year, if the world's discarded cartridges were stacked end-to-end they would circle the earth over three times.

For more information about this project please contact: John Homa, Solid Waste Project Manager with the City of Knoxville Public Service Department, 865-215-2872 or Scott Landry, Cartridge World, 865-690-4465 or at 865-803-0308.