Most companies have paper- and can-recycling bins scattered throughout the building. And there's good reason: Recycling helps the environment and saves money.

Nothing new about that. But what is new, today, is that office-product suppliers and printer manufacturers have programs to make recycling easy and some will even pay to pick up used ink cartridges. They use the recycled cartridges to remanufacture new cartridges with the same quality as the originals. Some office suppliers sell the remanufactured cartridges for 30% less than original [OEM]ones.

Recycling ink cartridges and paper saves potentially millions of pounds of landfill waste. Recycled paper saves the energy and water used to make virgin paper.

Office product suppliers like OfficeMax and Staples are among a few who have incentives to make it easy for companies to recycle ink cartridges. According to Harry Dochelli, executive vice president of operations for OfficeMax, the company's cartridge return program picks up cartridges directly from a drop-off box located in the customer's building. It also offers its customers a financial incentive for recycling used cartridges. OfficeMax sells remanufactured cartridges made from the recycled cartridges for 30% less than the OEM brand.

Mark Buckley, vice president of environmental affairs for Staples, says the company has diverted millions of ink jet toner cartridges from landfills. Staples remanufactures cartridges and makes sure they meet the specifications of the original cartridge. "We sell the remanufactured cartridges for 20% less than the OEM cartridge, on average," he says. "And they perform just as well."

About 90% of Xerox products are designed with remanufacturing in mind. There's no difference in the quality of the new vs. the recycled, says Pam Will, consumables strategy manager for Xerox supplies group. As part of its recycling process, Xerox picks up all its used equipment from customers at no fee. She says all savings from remanufacturing and recycled content goes directly to its customers. Xerox factors in what it saves from using a recycled component into the cost of the remanufactured item. "We prevented 142 million pounds of materials from going into landfills, and saved 1.4 million megawatt hours," from using recycled products, says Will.

In fact, Xerox's solid ink technology doesn't use a cartridge. Its green design uses resin-based solid ink sticks. When ink runs out, there is nothing left to throw away.

The company says it generates 95% less waste during use than a typical color laser product. For every 100,000 printed pages, a solid-ink printer generates five pounds of landfill waste, compared to about 157 pounds for a typical color laser printer.

Because solid ink prints the same on any paper, recycled paper can be used for all printing. Xerox is actively working to extend solid ink technology in other markets, and will continue to introduce solid ink products.

Staples developed environmental-attribute recording to show customers the environmental impact of their purchases. For instance, it provides business customers with information on how many trees they saved with certain purchases.

OfficeMax customers can build an order template for their frequently ordered products. When they begin ordering, the system points them in the direction of recycled products.