The empty cartridge in your drawer who takes it back for free, what it is worth, and whether refilling is worth the mess

First, check it is actually empty

Printers report a level, not a measurement. On most inkjets the gauge is a page counter calibrated against the rated yield, so it hits zero on schedule whether or not the cartridge did. Fitting a fresh one at the first warning throws away ink you paid for, and there is no way to get it back once the empty is in a recycling box.

Print past the warning until the page itself degrades. Our guide to what the low ink gauge really means covers the override on each brand, and reading a nozzle check tells you whether the fade is a spent cartridge or a blocked head, which no new cartridge will fix.

The other reason to check: a cartridge that still has ink in it can leak in transit, and Epson asks you to ensure there is no leakage from materials you post back. Bag anything wet.

How many empties your printer actually makes

The number of cartridges you retire is decided by the machine, not by you. Across the 257 printers in our catalogue the rated black yields differ by enough that two people printing identical amounts can send back wildly different amounts of plastic. The table gives each design's best case: the longest-lived black supply the machine takes, and how many bodies that works out at over 10,000 pages.

Across the whole catalogue the pattern is consistent. The 154 cartridge inkjets average 20 bodies per 10,000 pages at the median, running from 3.3 on the best of them to 50 on the worst. The 79 lasers sit at 3.3, and the 24 bottle-fed tank machines at 2.2. A median laser therefore retires about 6 times fewer objects than a median inkjet for the same paper, and the gap between the worst machine we track and the best is a factor of 60.

Set against that, a toner cartridge is much larger than an ink cartridge, so fewer bodies is not proportionally less material, and on the lasers that take a separate drum there is a second part to return every few toners. Ink bottles are the exception that really is simpler, being a plastic bottle with none of the chip and print head hardware inside it, though the machine still has a maintenance box that fills up eventually. If the size of the pile bothers you, it is a purchase decision rather than a recycling one, and ink tank versus cartridge covers whether that trade is worth making.

The four take-back programmes, and how they differ

All four brands we track run a free return programme and all four have run one for decades. Canon says it began collecting toner cartridges in 1990 and has taken back more than 473,000 tons worldwide since. HP launched returns for LaserJet cartridges in 1991 and added inkjet in 1997. What differs is the paperwork, and that is what decides whether you will bother.

Read that table as three brands that pay the postage and one that mostly does not. If you own an Epson and there is no drop-off point near you, a retailer bin will be easier than the trip to the post office.

HP will arrange a free pallet collection, but only above 76 toner cartridges or 1,000 ink cartridges, so that one is an office service rather than a household one. Canon asks you to send more than one item per label where you can, which is worth doing given a label covers a bundle of boxes up to the courier's 70 pound limit.

None of the four will send anything back. HP notes that items mistakenly sent in are not tracked and cannot be returned, so check the drawer for an unopened spare before you seal the box.

The shops that pay you for them

Retail drop-off is the path most people will actually use, because the shop is somewhere you already go and some of them pay. Staples accepts ink cartridges, toner cartridges and drum units in store, and hands empties to an associate at the till rather than a bin by the door. It also takes printers themselves, though that one costs 9.99 dollars in most states.

Office Depot and OfficeMax publish the clearest terms: 2 dollars back in rewards for each recycled ink or toner cartridge, up to 10 a month, provided you make a qualifying purchase of 10 dollars in the same month. Taxes, delivery fees, gift cards and anything paid for with rewards are excluded from that qualifying spend.

Staples has moved its own terms more than once. Its current answer is that members may recycle up to the maximum number displayed in the member's Easy Rewards dashboard each month and receive points per cartridge, which is a polite way of saying the cap is personal to your account and subject to change. Check your dashboard before you load the car, and do not plan a month's shopping around a figure you read in an article, including this one.

Best Buy and Walmart take cartridges without paying anything, and Walmart is ink only. If there is no reward attached, a manufacturer's prepaid label achieves the same outcome without the drive.

One rule is common to all of them: the reward is for a household clearing its own drawer. Staples has long excluded ink resellers and remanufacturers from earning recycling rewards.

Can you sell them instead?

Yes, and for most people it is not worth the effort. A trade of buyers exists because remanufacturers need intact used shells, and they will quote you per part and send a prepaid label. The catch is which parts they want.

• High value laser toner has a real market. Large office cartridges and anything scarce fetches the prices that make these lists worth reading.
• Common household ink cartridges usually do not. The small ones are abundant, cheap to remanufacture and cheap to replace, so quotes land near zero and the packing time costs more than the cheque.
• Buyers want virgin empties. A shell that has already been refilled or remanufactured once is worth less or nothing, because the failure rate on a second pass climbs.
• Damage kills the value. Cracked bodies, snapped tabs and pierced foil seals are scrap, so keep empties in the box the replacement arrived in.

Compare that against 2 dollars of store credit per cartridge for something you were shopping at anyway. For a home printer the retailer reward is usually the better deal, and selling makes sense mainly for an office clearing out a stockroom of toner.

Charity and school collections are the third route. They have collected cartridges as fundraisers for decades, and the cartridges still get processed, so if a local scheme exists it costs you nothing to send the value there instead.

The refill question

Refilling an empty yourself is the cheapest option on paper and the one most likely to end in a bad afternoon. The syringe kits work, in the narrow sense that ink goes in. What they do not solve is everything the cartridge does besides holding ink.

On an inkjet that keeps its print head in the cartridge, refilling puts fresh ink through a head that has already done its rated work, so the failure that follows is often the head rather than the ink. On a machine with a permanent head in the body, a badly filtered refill puts particulates through the part you cannot replace. Either way the chip keeps counting from where it stopped, so the printer still reports empty and you are back to the override.

There is a disposal consequence too. HP's programme terms exclude refilled and remanufactured cartridges outright, so a cartridge you refill at home can no longer go back through the maker's free label. It can still go to a retailer bin, but you have narrowed your own options.

Remanufactured cartridges are the same idea done properly, and they are the reason the empties trade exists at all. A remanufacturer strips the shell, replaces the wear parts, refills to spec and tests the result, which is work a kitchen table cannot reproduce. Brother says it remanufactured more than 8 million toner cartridges between 2017 and 2024, so even the brand that will not sell you a compatible cartridge runs the process internally. Our OEM versus compatible versus remanufactured comparison covers how the three options price out, and how to tell a safe third party cartridge from a bad one covers picking a seller.

Buying remanufactured is also the only choice here that closes the loop, because sending an empty back only supplies the shells that somebody else then has to buy.

Toner, drums and the rest of the box

Canon draws the distinction on its own take-back page: unlike its all-in-one cartridges, toner containers are made mainly of plastic, which makes them suitable for local recycling and local energy recovery in many areas, and using a local service avoids the transport. So a plain toner bottle may be accepted where a cartridge is not. Check your council's list before assuming either way.

Drum units, belt units and waste toner boxes are covered by the same programmes as the toner. Brother's label explicitly covers drum units, and Staples lists drum units alongside toner in what it accepts in store. There is no reason for a spent drum to end up in the garage.

Watch for the exceptions on large formats. HP notes it does not currently provide a shipping label in the box for A3 toner cartridges, and it publishes a list of non-returnable supplies that is worth checking before you post anything unusual.

Then there is the printer itself. Epson partners with Digitunity to pass working equipment to nonprofits, which beats recycling a machine that still prints. If it is genuinely dead, Epson and HP both offer hardware take-back and Staples will take a printer in store for a fee. A machine that has stopped accepting cartridges is often not dead at all, so try the firmware rejection guide before writing it off.

Common questions

Keep reading

• OEM vs compatible vs remanufactured buying the reused shell is the other half of returning one.
• Ink tank vs cartridge printers the purchase that decides how big the pile gets.
• Says low but the cartridge is not empty check before you retire a cartridge with ink left in it.
• Drum unit vs toner the second laser part that also goes back under the same label.
• Is a cheap third party cartridge safe picking a remanufacturer worth buying from.
• What the cartridge chip actually does why remanufacturers will pay for a shell with a working chip.
• Setup cartridges and what the first refill costs what to do with the setup cartridges once the machine has finished with them.
• Waste ink pads and maintenance boxes where the machine goes when a pad service costs more than it is worth.
• Is your cartridge number being discontinued? returned empties are what keeps remanufactured stock alive for retired numbers.
• Your cartridge is being discontinued: what to do about it returned empties are the raw material behind remanufactured stock.

Sources

1. HP, Ink and toner cartridge recycling, for the free drop-off partners, the mail back and pallet pickup thresholds of more than 76 toner or 1,000 ink cartridges, the statement that HP cartridges cannot be effectively recycled by conventional commercial processes, and the terms excluding other brands, refilled and remanufactured cartridges at the sender's expense. hp.com
2. HP sustainability support, on where to get a replacement label, the free label inside A4 toner boxes, the absence of one for A3 toner, and the Staples, Office Depot, Best Buy and Walmart drop-off list. hp.com
3. Canon USA, Toner Cartridge Take-Back Program, for the 1990 start date, the 473,000 tons collected, the prepaid UPS return label, the acceptable items list and terms, and the note that plain toner containers are mostly plastic and often suitable for local recycling. usa.canon.com
4. Canon USA, Ink Cartridge Take-Back Program, for the free drop-off at over 1,600 FedEx Office Print and Ship Centers and the advice to confirm participation with the local branch. usa.canon.com
5. Brother USA, Ink and Toner Recycling Program, for the free prepaid USPS Consumable Return Program label printed through a Brother account, covering ink, toner, drum and P-touch supplies. brother-usa.com
6. Brother USA, Environmental Programs, for the figure of more than 8 million toner cartridges remanufactured between 2017 and 2024. brother-usa.com
7. Epson, Recycling Program, for the prepaid FedEx label offered on hardware, the postal address for consumer ink and supplies, the retail drop-off locator, the free business inkjet mailer kit, the request that returned materials do not leak, and the Digitunity hardware donation route. epson.com
8. Staples, Recycling Services, for the in-store acceptance of ink cartridges, toner cartridges and drum units, the 9.99 dollar printer recycling fee, and points on ink and toner recycling through Easy Rewards. staples.com
9. Staples, Easy Rewards overview, for the statement that members may recycle up to the maximum number shown in their own dashboard each month and receive points per cartridge. staples.com
10. Office Depot, Rewards Terms and Conditions, for 2 dollars in recycling rewards per ink or toner cartridge, up to 10 per month, with a qualifying 10 dollar purchase in the same month and the list of excluded spend. officedepot.com

Last updated 13 September 2026. This guide is general information, not a repair warranty. Printer menus and HP's model lists change, so confirm the exact steps for your model on the manufacturer's support site before you make changes.