They consume less materials and use fewer natural resources than single-use cartridges. It’s important to note that when a printer cartridge is remanufactured by Clover Imaging, it is a reused cartridge – a cartridge that would have otherwise ended up in an overburdened landfill. Reuse is the highest form of environmental responsibility and is superior to recycling in that it does not use non-renewable resources to break down plastic and metal. Multiple government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, have stated that a printer cartridge and all its components should always first be evaluated for refurbishment. If refurbishment is not possible then responsible recycling should be pursued.*
* US Environmental Protection Agency, “Consolidated Recovered Materials Advisory Notice (RMAN) for the Comprehensive Procurement Guideline (CPG).” September 2007.
Clover Imaging Group’s circular environmental process repurposes empty printer cartridges – giving them a second life and keeping waste out of landfills. Make the switch from single-use to remanufactured cartridges and help keep our planet healthy for future generations.
Empty cartridges that Clover cannot remanufacture, due to not meeting quality standards, are responsibly recycled. Clover evaluates every empty cartridge that is received - first for refurbishment and secondarily for material recovery through recycling. A remanufacturable cartridge is disassembled and as many components as possible are reused. Cartridges that are non-remanufacturable are disassembled, sorted into material types and recycled. Clover’s proprietary Closed-Loop Environmental Process ensures that every component of the empty cartridges collected is either remanufactured or responsibly recycled.
Clover Imaging’s intellectual property portfolio now consists of numerous patents and more patents pending. Many of the technological advances described in these patents focus specifically on promoting the efficient use of resources by facilitating the reuse of existing components during remanufacturing operations. Clover Imaging’s vertical integration and investment into automation engineering allows us to take control of key aspects of our business in order to provide our customers with an environmentally friendly, superior quality product while internally reducing our environmental footprint.
2022 Aspire Sustainability Comparative LCA, commissioned by Clover Imaging Group.
Global Warming Potential / Carbon Footprint / Climate Change:
The global warming potential impact category refers to the warming that can occur due to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities. This warming can lead to changes in the global climate which can cause negative impacts to human and ecosystem health.
Energy Footprint/Cumulative Energy Demand:
The energy footprint is the energy needed throughout a product’s life cycle and includes non-renewable (fossil and nuclear) and renewable (biomass, water, solar, winder, geothermal) energy sources. The Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) of a product is the direct and indirect energy use throughout the life cycle, including the energy consumed during the extraction, manufacturing, and disposal. The CED method considers both renewable and non-renewable energy and the direct and indirect energy consumption.
Natural Resources:
The Resources score reflects depletion of the Earth’s fossil and mineral resources. This category measures the geological distribution of mineral and fossil resources and assesses how the use of these resources causes marginal changes in the efforts to extract future resources. The quantification of damage to resource availability is based on the marginal increase in the cost of extracting resources, measured as dollars.
Human Health:
The Human Health score sums a variety of environmental impacts related to human health such as smog and ozone depletion. DALY stands for “Disability Adjusted Life Years,” which is a measure of quality of life.
Impact of remanufactured cartridges on the environment
