One in four refilled print cartridges DOA
sep.2007
–  Print cartridge maker HP has advised consumers to beware of buying
well-known grocery giants’ in-store/refill brand and various refill
stations’ inkjet cartridges, warning that one in five compatible
alternatives were either “dead on arrival” or failed prematurely.Across
Europe it is becoming a popular phenomenon for high street grocery
chains to enter the consumer electronics market and many are selling
their-own branded inkjet cartridges compatible with popular printer
brands such as HP.

HP business
development manager Eduardo Macias told siliconrepublic.com that
original print cartridges from manufacturers like HP would on average
print 34pc more pages than compatible alternatives and 69pc more pages
than those bought at a refill outlet.“I don’t think people fully
realise that when they buy another brand of cartridge for a HP printer
they think it’s a bona fide HP cartridge when in fact its simply a
refilled cartridge.“As a result the probability of such a cartridge
actually working is quite low. When the consumer thinks he or she is
saving a few quid they’re not actually saving in the end.“The problem
for HP is they won’t blame the firm that sold them the cartridge but
would actually blame the manufacturer of the printer itself.”Gary
Tierney, general manager of HP’s Inkjet Products Group in Ireland told
siliconrepublic.com: “We don’t make cartridges for anyone else to
brand. But if someone sees a store-branded product the fact of the
matter is it is second-hand, possibly even more than second
hand.“Retail chains, including traditional food retailers, now see a
route to market through electronics like 42-inch plasma TVs and
laptops. But the problem we find is that if they buy a print cartridge
with someone else’s brand on it there’s a perception that these
products are made by HP and they’re not.“It is important to note that
the print head on each cartridge is not a small bottle top but a
detailed piece of electronics. And in most cases of these store-branded
‘compatible’ products they are actually something that somebody else
threw in a bin,” Tierney said.

HP study says remanufactured printer cartridges unreliable
November 
2006Beware remanufactured printer cartridges, says Hewlett-Packard’s
Scott Canonico, manager of environmental policy and strategy at the
Silicon Valley company. Their failure rates can negate short-term
savings from their lower price.Canonico says an HP-sponsored study by
Moorpark, Calif.-based QualityLogic, a quality testing service company,
concluded that remanufactured cartridges have major reliability
problems,Results from the study say that 70% of remanufactured inkjet
cartridges and 80% of remanufactured laserjet “exhibited reliability
problems,” in contrast with 2% of original HP cartridges. The study
defines a reliability problem as “leaking cartridges,
cross-contaminated colors, and cartridges that printed no pages.” In
addition, the study says that approximately 17% of all refilled inkjet
cartridges failed prematurely, but did not cite the failure percentage
for original HP cartridges.Major ink and toner manufacturers, including
HP, Canon, Epson, and Lexmark, have cartridge recycling programs for
their laserjet cartridges at the very least, if not for their inkjets
as well. Users can request a postage-paid envelope online and return
the cartridge to the manufacturer, or in many cases, use a similar
process to return many cartridges at once in bulk. In some cases, the
cartridges are recycled completely, while others are remanufactured for
reuse. HP does not remanufacture cartridges sent in by customers.
Instead, it recycles the raw materials to make other products, Canonico
says, such as clothes hangers, automobile parts, processing trays, and
even parts for other electronics such as scanners. Printer cartridges
“are designed for single use, where we’ve optimized the product to work
for that original life, and there’s a huge amount of technology that
goes into the product itself,” says Canonico. “It’s a tuned system, and
when you introduce a third party ink into an inkjet cartridge, you’re
not going to get the same level of performance.” What ends up happening
to compensate for an under-performing cartridge is a great deal of
waste in the form of reprints, which use unnecessary paper and energy
as well as ink or toner.Canonico says the material that HP uses for its
laserjet and inkjet cartridge packaging is made out of recycled
paperboard, and newer cartridges use fewer overall materials, making
them easier to recycle. “We’ve reduced the size of laserjet packaging
through some design innovations, and also used more recyclable
material,” he says. “We have about 30% greater space use efficiencies
for laserjet cartridges, which means 30% more cartridges per pallet,
1500 more cartridges in an ocean container, and less truck traffic—a
big one for the environment.”