Comment Re:Google It (Score 1) 189
Damn, that's a nice program. Kudos to Brother.
I wish I could find something on their website that states what they actually do with the returned toner cartridges. All I could find is this:
We will evaluate the opportunities to recycle, reuse, reduce, refuse and reform resources throughout the life cycle of our products.
My emphasis. This is not a commitment to recycle. It's feel-good corporate-speak.
Do they actually dismantle and recycle them? Do they refurbish them, or sell them to a refurbisher? Or do they just dispose of them so that they stay out of the after-market?
I'm sorry to be cynical. Brother may very well be acting as a good corporate citizen. But when I don't see explicit mention of their actions, I start to wonder what they are.
I suspect there are two problems for them in being too clear. First, I suspect they can't guarantee to reuse every cartridge - some of them will be damaged or contaminated, I imagine; second, they won't want to validate third party cartridge refills by admitting they actually do refills themselves! I recycle my Lexmark cartridges by mailing them back (with a prepaid shipping label they include with every new cartridge); my guess is they will refill and reset perfect-condition cartridges, recondition damaged or older ones, and recover the raw materials from unusable ones, but they won't want to be too open about the details. The "new" cartridges aren't exactly cheap, admitting they're sometimes actually refills would probably hurt sales.