What can I do with roughly 1,000 used printer toner cartridges?

These are the big toner cartridges, not the little laser print cartridges. They're for commercial printers. They're horrible for the environment and can't be simply thrown away. Many office stores will take them and give a recycling credit of $1 to $3 each (and who couldn't use an extra thousand dollars or so?!) but have a limit of ten a month, which means it'd take YEARS to get rid of them all.





Ideas? There's a local office supply store that will take them all for free, but since they are worth at least a dollar apiece and there's between 1000-1500 of them, I'd like to get a little money out of them. Anybody?





These are in their original packaging. They fill one room from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, 8ft x 8ft x 10ft. They are all in excellent condition - but they're used. There's a wide variety of brands.What can I do with roughly 1,000 used printer toner cartridges?
build a fort.What can I do with roughly 1,000 used printer toner cartridges?
I would contact a company who buy empty laser cartridges.


I have dealt with both of these guys





www.westpointproducts.com


and


www.ersusa.com





They both have accepted buy back lists, however hopefully you will be able to get rid of most of them in one shot as long as they are OEM Virgin cores.
Call a computer store. One i go to takes empty cartridges for recycling.


You might get a deal on new ink.
build a fort?
Well, the problem You would have from a business/sales standpoint wouldn't be how to get rid of them all in one shot, because that seems pretty impossible due to environmental hazards and paying to destroy them. Instead You simply need to find the roght market that can buy them in a fast enough amount of time to make their storage cost either less than or equal to the income from them.





You may want to try finding a local or online repair shop that does refills and/or printer repairs and sales, and make a decent offer of three of the same brand and type for say $35.00, which they would then refill (because You have no way of knowing how much toner is in each cartridge Yourself, it could be several pages, empty already, or a few hundred in each cartridge), and include with their sold printers as a promotion gimmick, or if their customer buys a couple of the same printers they'd get 2 spare cartridges too.





You could also try the same thing online with a site like Craigslist or eBay, and state VERY CLEARLY that You have no idea how much toner is in each cartridge rght now, but You could include a $10.00 refill bottle (You would buy Yourself online at like 50 bottles for a bulk discount) and 2 cartridges for say $45.00 - $55.00 with free shipping in the US.





Lastly, You could probably donate a large portion of them with the same deals and pricing values to some company that might have a large variety of printers still in daily service, like a wildlife organization or other not-for-profit organization.





But I'd say at least make back what it cost You to get them first, and the storage room costs before actually donating, though You'll probably have a few months to look for those places while You're selling off some stock.





It's also a good idea to set a biz plan up figuring the cost to get them, ongoing storage fees, price per cartridge or kit to upgrade them to a sellable conditon (or complete kit), and estimate about 6 months minumum to sell th whole lot, or decide to donate it for the break-even. This will help with both looking for some labor help, some financing, or for figuring a per-month losses for both Your taxes and future investment possibilities.





You MAY even be able to get some of that bank or government financing to start up a ';Green business'; since You're saving landfills and recycling semi-hazardous waste products.





Also be sure to shp[ arund fr th absolute best pricing on the refill bttles, and use only bottles for the specific brands and models of printers that cartridge works with, some toners are rated at higher or lower temperatures, and ';dissipation ratings'; which allow smaller or larger specks of ink through the system. (Don't assume all toner is the same when creating sellable kits).





And send a little appreciation email when You've make the frst $25,000. I could use a few bucks at the moment and I can be grateful for a quick couple grand !! ;-) ...











Good Luck!.