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PRINTERS
Printers are one of the worst culprits for office plastic waste. They are the perfect example of planned obsolescence because they are not built to last and turnover is high.
You can easily find an inexpensive printer, but you must buy the expensive plastic cartridges for the rest of the life cycle of the printer. This is how printer makers generate ongoing profits. The plastic cartridges are very pricey, sometimes up to a 1,000 percent markup. A cheap piece of plastic containing a little bit of ink goes for $20 to 25 apiece but probably costs less than two dollars to make.
Some companies have introduced to the market printers with large ink tanks that only need to be refilled once a year or less. This is better. When refilling the tanks, you must purchase a bottle of ink. Although the ink refill is packaged in a plastic bottle, this system allows you to save several disposable plastic ink cartridges.
Another option is to get your cartridges refilled by a specialized shop. Or, if you are a DIY kind of person, you can purchase a refill kit where you can inject ink into an empty cartridge using a syringe-type of device. It can be messy, but it works. The kits are widely available at major retail chains and online.
Image credit: Jakub Zerdzicki
STATIONARY
Millions of plastic ballpoint pens are sold every year and thrown away. Because of its multiple components, the plastic pen is hard to recycle. Instead, consider a fountain pen with a refillable cartridge and a bottle of ink. Discover the joy of handwriting again! If you like to use various colors of ink, a glass pen might be just for you. They retain the ink in thin grooves along the glass nib and you can easily change the color after a quick rinse of the pen.
Glue is simple to make with equal parts flour and sugar and then just add water to get it to a pasty consistency. Or you could go for the Italian-made Coccoina almond paste all-natural glue in a metal tin.
