*NEWS*PLANET ARK STILL HUNGRY FOR CTGS

[Anonymous]

Planet Ark still hungry for cartridges

Planet Ark’s war on high
tech wastage has kept over 1.4 million printer cartridges from
landfills since the start of its Cartridges for Planet Ark program 18
months ago, but its fight with cartridge remanufacturers continues.

When the program started, the Australasian Cartridge Remanufacturers
Association (ACRA) reportedly criticised the OEM/Planet Ark strategy,
saying the campaign did not attempt to reuse cartridges, and only
recycled them.

However, Planet Ark’s managing director, Jon Dee, said the ACRA “knew this to be a false claim.”

“One of their members remanufactured Panasonic printer cartridges
collected by the Cartridges 4 Planet Ark program,” he said, adding that
60 per cent of laser toner cartridges collected by the program were
sent to the original equipment manufacturers for remanufacturing or
component recovery programs.

ACRA executive officer, Graham McCusker, acknowledged the environmental
watchdog’s statistics, but added that the ACRA had not observed any
large-scale supply of remanufactured cartridges from Planet Ark’s
partnered manufacturers.

“We are aware of Planet Ark’s assertion that 60 per cent of printer
cartridges collected are returned to the manufacturers, but we have
been unable to confirm this from independent sources,” he said

McCusker expressed disappointment that Planet Ark had not exerted
pressure on its commercial sponsors to concentrate on reducing the
number and toxicity of the materials used in their products.

But Dee hit back, explaining that “Planet Ark works with many
industries which we encourage to minimise their impact on the
environment and take responsibility for the waste they generate.”

“That is why we set up ‘Cartridges 4 Planet Ark’,” he said.

The remaining cartridges from the program are recycled at “Close the Loop”, a recycling facility in Melbourne.

“To the best of our knowledge, the Cartridges 4 Planet Ark recycling
program was the first recycling program in the world to guarantee zero
waste to landfill from its recycling process,” Dee said.

Despite initiatives by the ACRA and Planet Ark, 80 per cent of the 18
million cartridges disposed by Australians each year still end up in
landfills.

[Author]

September 17, 2005 at 11:58 AM