How to Make Money Selling Empty Ink Cartridges

Stop throwing out your empty printer ink cartridges! You can get paid a good sum by saving them and returning them to a recycling center or trading in the cartridges for savings at office supply stores. Sites such as Freerecycling and eCycle are two of the major ink recyclers that will pay you for sending them cartridges. Office Max currently takes several dollars off purchases when you return empty cartridges to them, which they refill and resell.

Things You'll Need

• Empty ink cartridges (not previously refilled)
• Shipping instructions
• Shipping boxes
• Prepaid return labels and/or envelopes

Instructions

Make money selling empty ink cartridges

1. Save your empty printer ink cartridges and take note of the make and model number of each cartridge.

2. Place each empty ink cartridge into a clear plastic bag until you are ready to sell them. You’ll probably have to wrap each cartridge in paper or in crumpled newspapers.

3. Decide what to do with the empty cartridges. You can sell them to a recycling center such as eCycle or use empty cartridges for discounts at office supply stores such as Office Max. There are many recycling centers that do not pay to recycle them or which only pay money to charitable organizations that send in empty ink cartridges.

4. Read the instructions applicable to your recycling center. They usually provide postage paid return envelopes or they may have you place an address label (postage pre-paid) on the outside of a separate shipping box that you supply.

5. Fill out the invoice form that the center has provided to you. This will tell you how much you will be paid for each ink cartridge that is an acceptable condition to return. Prices paid vary greatly and not all cartridges are accepted at all centers. Also, some recycling centers like eCycle have minimum return requirements. ECycle currently has a return minimum amount of 20 cartridges per shipment.

Tips & Warnings

• Follow the specific instructions provided to you by the center in regard to how they want ink cartridges packed for shipping. This includes making sure that you are sending in at least the minimum number of cartridges that the recycling center will accept.

• Most recycling centers won’t pay for empty ink cartridges that have already been refilled once or which are damaged.

Resources

• This is an excellent site where you can sell ink cartridges for a great price.
• This is a reliable place to sell your cartridges, although they don’t pay as well as eCycle.