A recent article in the New York Times by David Gallagher relates how a growing number of remanufacturers overhaul and refill inkjet and laser cartridges and sell them at much lower prices than the originals from the printer manufacturers.
The industry, writes Gallagher, is boosted by funding programs addressing the needs of beneficiary groups that do the collecting of used cartridges for remanufacturers, in exchange for substantial amounts of money to fund their causes.
One such program is called the Funding Factory, which has 22,000 institution-partners on its list, such as the St. Ann School in Cadillac, Michigan.
"The school has acquired 40 headphones worth about $15 each through (this) project," writes Gallagher. Other groups set up their own collection programs and get more in return.
Also cited in the article is an international relief organization based in Deerfield Beach, Florida, which "is now bringing in a few thousand dollars a month" for its "Food for the Poor," according to an officer of the group, Glen Belden.
This kind of fund-raising is not far from influencing interested groups in the country, especially now that a local industry for remanufacturing empty inkjet and laser cartridges at the Subic Freeport Zone has given rise to three new corporations to receive expanding collections of empty inkjet and laser-printer cartridges nationwide.
Printing Images CtC. Inc. (047-2526012; 0916-3053244) has formed three independent corporations as its collecting partners. One is Printing Images-Manila (890-1266; 0917-8329073), based in Makati for Metro Manila and Southern Luzon. The two others are Printing Images-Luzon (047-2244526), based in Olongapo City (outside the main office in Subic) to cover Central and Northern Luzon; and Printing Images-Cebu (0916-4315946), based in Cebu City, to cover the Visayas and Mindanao areas.
With this expansion, the company welcomes more individuals or groups who want to be collectors, full-time or part-time. Indeed, there is a need to meet the continuing demand for quality remanufactured cartridges abroad, where Printing Images has been selling its products.
Meanwhile, in response to local demand, the company is setting aside an initial 20 percent of its output for sale to the domestic market.
The expansion is also necessary to absorb the continuing supply of empty cartridges from an increasing number of collectors nationwide, as more suppliers or end-users become aware of the need for used cartridges.
In a recent radio interview of Printing Images-Manila’s collectors, the program had barely signed off the air when text and landline calls from those who listened to the program came in from various points in Metro Manila, Northern and Southern Luzon, and as far as Tacloban in the South and Santiago, Isabela in the North.