Donate unused cartridges to plant trees! 🌲🌳🌲

Upgraded your printer? — Moving office? — Photocopier broken down? — Order the wrong toner? — Ink expired?

Example images of boxed new & unused cartridges

Trees For the Future plant-a-tree partner

⚠️ Don't just recycle your full & unused cartridges — instead we collect for free and find new homes for them, which is even greener than recycling.

You plant 2 trees 🌲 with partner charity Trees for the Future per item — since 2015 we've planted over 145,000 trees and helped 1,000s of offices & homes declutter.

♻️ Donate Cartridges Now

👍 Totally Free 🇬🇧 UK-wide Service

Free collection or Royal Mail Freepost labels for full ink & toner cartridges.

🌳 1 Unused Toner = 2 🌲s Planted

Two trees will capture 360kg of CO2 over their lifetime & help offset your carbon footprint. » More about trees

🔄 Greener Than Recycling

Repurposing full toners with us = 2x the oil and CO2 saving vs recycling, as it can be used as-is.

♻️ Zero To Landfill

If some of your items aren't eligible, or you have used / empty cartridges, we help you with recycling options.

🏅 Thank-You Certificate

Your personal thank-you certificate shows the number of cartridges reused, number of trees and estimated CO2 offset.

🖨️ Donate Your Unused Ink & Toner Now

Give your old cartridges a second life with our free better-than-recycling service.

How to Donate

1. Share Details

✏️ Fill in the form above & share the details of your items.

As it's a free service we need to check eligibility.

We'll let you know usually the same working day if eligible & how many trees we expect to plant.

♻️ Any items we can't find new homes for, we help you use the best recycling options.

🚚 2. Pack & Ship

You get a free pre-paid 🔖shipping label — typically Royal Mail, DPD, Yodel options.

Pack your eligible items in a cardboard box — please don't open any sealed boxes.

For larger consignments, we can send you free 📦 large shipping cartons if you won't be able to source existing boxes.

In the South East, we may be able to pick up on-site directly.

🏅 3. Your Certificate

About a week after shipping, we receive them & donate 2 trees 🌲🌲 for each unused cartridge.

You get a thank-you certificate — showing # of cartridges, trees, and estimated CO2 saved!

Your cupboards are cleared, the cartridges go to new homes instead of wasteful recycling, and you offset your printing CO2 footprint!

Example thank-you certificate

♼ Donate Now   Email Us

📈 total progress so far: 2015 → 2024

🖨️
32,288
cartridges

repurposed by our 1,000s of supporters instead of recycled

🌲
145,862
trees

planted with our charity partner Trees For The Future

🌎
26,255
tons of CO2

captured by these trees based on 180kg CO2 sequestered over a tree's lifetime

Got Any Questions? ⤵️

Yes, the service is completely free! Because of that, we do need to check that we can use the particular new & unused cartridges you have and that they will at least cover costs & raise funds for Trees For The Future.

When we have the details of your items we'll get back to you normally the same business working day to sort the shipment.

It means breaking down the product for scrap plastic, scrap metals and electronics, and that a new cartridge has to be manufactured to meet the demand that one could have filled. Why do all that when you can plant some trees too?

We talk a little more about that on our better than recycling page.

We operate across the entirety of the United Kingdom using nationwide couriers (generally DPD, Yodel, Royal Mail) to move your items.

So whether you’re in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland we can find a way to ship your items. Even if you’re very remote we can normally use Royal Mail services.

And if you are in the South East of England, or London, or within 100 miles one of our warehouses we may be able to collect your cartridges loose (if you have a larger number) without having to pack them up into shipping boxes using our own vans directly.

We also operate in the United States 🇺🇸, Australia 🇦🇺 & Canada 🇨🇦.

We cannot plant trees for generic / ‘compatible’ / off-brand versions (not made by the genuine original printer manufacturer) as they simply don’t have any secondary market value.

We’ll help you find a free alternative recycling option for these if this is all you have, or you have a lot of them.

In rare cases you may be able to ship a few along with other items that are eligible.

We take unused ink and toner cartridges as well as print drums, kits, fusers, waste toner cartridges, and other printer cartridges & consumables.

By unused we mean they will need to have some kind of security seal still in place — if you’ve removed all the sealed packaging or tried to install them into a printer they are considered used.

We accept items from all the most popular brands: Hewlett Packard, Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, Kodak, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Lexmark, Panasonic, Ricoh, Samsung, Xerox & more.

When we have the details of your items we’ll get back to you normally the same business working day to confirm they’re eligible and sort shipment.

We normally cannot plant trees for any of the following:

  • Used / part-used / empty cartridges
  • Generic / ‘compatible’ / off-brand versions not made by the genuine original printer manufacturer
  • ❌ items where all security seals have been opened and *both* the outer box & inner sealed packaging have been opened
  • ❌ the printers themselves

We’ll give you a clear idea of what to do with any of these, sometimes small quantities can be shipped along with the other items if it doesn’t change the shipping cost, or we’ll help you find alternative recycling options.

Because we pay for shipping, processing, and recycling fees for any cartridges that can’t be reused, we need to check that we can reuse your items and will be able to plant trees.

The easiest way is to send us a clear 📸 photo of your items — we can check the model numbers, quantities, and verify their condition for you normally same working business day without you having to list them.

If have a large number, we’ll work with you to repurpose the maximum amount we can and plant as many trees as possible, and sort you out with recycling any we can’t use.

Any reusable unused cartridge that we ship is worth 2 trees planted with Trees For The Future — our partner charity.

Trees are highly effective at capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, improving soil conditions, and have many other benefits.

Yes! In most cases we can use these even if the “warranty ends” or “use by” date has passed, as this is not a hard limit on being able to use the cartridge.

We still need to check the specific models have enough value to cover our costs.

You will receive a thank-you certificate at the end listing the number of cartridges reused, the number of trees planted with Trees For the Future, and the estimated CO2 sequestered.

These cartridges are intended to be used as they are (and not e.g. recycled as hazardous waste), so they are not considered waste and thus not covered by waste transfer legislation in the UK. So no certification is required, but we do provide a thank-you certificate for your records listing the number of items reused, and the number of trees planted.

It depends on the specific facility we ship your items to and the shipping constraints. If we are not able to ship your empties at the same time (because of the increased cost) we will help you find a suitable recycling option you can use.

We mostly use nationwide carriers networks to ship your items, so you will need to put them (in their original packaging) into a sturdy outer protective shipping box of some kind. Please do not open the cartridges’ outer boxes or sealed packaging that the cartridges came in to do this however.

We’re charged per parcel, also by the total weight, so we ask that you find suitably large sturdy boxes, and only include the eligible items.

If you have a large number of bulky items:

  • we can often supply shipping cartons and tape free of charge if you won’t manage to find suitable boxes of your own to use.
  • or if you’re within 100 miles of one of our warehouses in the UK (generally South East England) we may be able to collect directly on-site using our own vans, so no need to pack

You are welcome to cover the costs of shipping your full printer cartridges to us — this may be easier and more straightforward for you if you have existing arrangements with a courier.

We still need to do a check to see that we can usefully reuse your items before we allow you to send though, as there are costs in handling and processing, and it actually costs money to dispose of and recycle items that we cannot actually reuse.

If you have some suitably-sized cardboard boxes you can reuse to ship your items out to us, that’s ideal as you’re reusing existing resources which is quicker and better for the environment.

If you have a larger number of big unused cartridges to ship, and will definitely not be able to find a suitable box, then we may be able to provide sturdy shipping boxes and tape.

Your cartridges are reused as they were originally intended — as full cartridges that we find homes for with somebody who has an appropriate printer.

This reduces the number of printer cartridges that needs to be manufactured, which reduces use of oil to produce plastics, precious metals, and energy used in construction.

Recycling — breaking cartridges down into component materials for use in different products — may be better than landfill, but is a completely wasteful process when we can find a second home for them to be used as they are.

Nothing we or our partners receive is sent to landfill.

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🥰 our supporters → a forest of stories

Certificate 0

Maschoff Brennan

in Salt Lake City, UT donated 5 HP toners

& planted 10 trees

April 12, 2024

Certificate 1

Priority Mechanical

in Edmonton, AB donated 13 Xerox photocopier items

& planted 26 trees

April 11, 2024

Certificate 2

Laura

in UK donated 5 Epson inks

& planted 10 trees

April 10, 2024

Certificate 3

Ryan

in Dallas, TX donated 27 Epson inks

& planted 54 trees

April 10, 2024

Certificate 4

CUPE Local 79

in Toronto, ON donated 8 HP laserjet toners

& planted 16 trees

March 27, 2024

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Content copyright 2015 — 2024. All rights reserved. Cartridge Forest Inc & Seriously Easy Ltd in partnership with Trees For The Future 🌿 to improve recycling across the 🇺🇸 United States, 🇨🇦 Canada, 🇦🇺 Australia & the 🇬🇧 United Kingdom.

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