Los Angeles Aims To Ban Single-Use Printer Cartridges
2 71Los Angeles is moving to ban single-use printer cartridges that can't be refilled or taken back for recycling. Tom's Hardware reports: Printer cartridges are usually built with a combination of plastic, metal, and chemicals that makes them hard to easily dispose. They can be treated as hazardous waste by the city, but even then it would take them hundreds of years to actually disintegrate at a waste site. Since they're designed to be thrown away in the first place, the real solution is to target the root of the issue -- hence the ban.
2 comments
Good (Score: 5, Insightful)
by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @06:11PM (#65960056)
Good.
The fact that they make you buy a whole new cartridge just because you ran out of toner, or out of ink, is nothing but a money grab by the manufacturers. They can't sell you a new printer every few months, so they found another way to keep you buying expensive stuff./
Re: California (Score: 5, Insightful)
by sodul ( 833177 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @06:09PM (#65960052)
Tbh, printing has a large amount of plastic and chemical waste linked to it. One bigger issue is that the printers get bricked too easily and it can sometimes be cheaper, for the consumer, to buy a new printer than get new OEM cartridges.
At home we switched to laser printers exclusively with good 3rd party support for non OEM ink. Does it print as well as the expensive ink, no, but it is close enough.
In the rare cases where we do need to print actual photos, like for passport pictures, we'll just print them as regular prints at the local Walgreens, CVS or Walmart. Prints are always good, and there is no frustration about clogged ink or whatever.
The thing is that a ban need to be careful. Banning single use plastic bags caused an increase in plastic waste as folks just paid for the thicker re-useable ones, and tossed them like the disposable ones. Many re-usable bags were made with plastic that disintegrated in tin of microplastic.
Personally I prefer cotton tote bags or netting style. Lasts for years and years, can be thrown in the wash when needed and cotton will naturally turn into compost if left in wet dirt. It could be made from many other natural fibers.