Lighting
Compact Fluorescent light bulbs are likely to replace conventional incandescent bulbs in the near future. But, as well as being generally disliked by consumers, these bulbs contain significant amounts of Mercury.
Mercury is the most toxic pollutant, after radioactive substances, on the Environmental Protection Authority's list of industrial pollutants.
When these toxic bulbs are disposed of, they will end up in landfill and will pose a very significant health risk.
Kudos is working to promote the benefits of using an alternative technology, which does not lead to pollution, but which uses even less energy than compact fluorescents.
LED - The safe alternative
Bulbs using Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are now available as viable replacements for incandescent lights. LED bulbs last longer than CFLs, use less power and produce flicker-free light. And they do not contain harmful substances.
The development of LEDs for production of white light has been astonishing. So fast, in fact, that many people will only be aware of LEDs as red indicator lights on electrical appliances.
LEDs are now commonly used in vehicle lights, torches, streetlights and other common applications – and their efficiency is staggering. But they have only recently been introduced for general lighting applications.
Printer Supplies
It is estimated that over 500 million printer cartridges are disposed of in landfill sites across the UK every year. Cartridges are mostly made up of plastic parts, which are not biodegradable and are therefore damaging to our environment. To help reduce the volume of waste going to landfill, Kudos reclaims and recycles used printer cartridges, ensuring that our customers have the best possible chance to minimize the environmental impact of their printing.
Why Recycle?
There are many parts in a laser toner cartridge that suffer little or no wear during the cartridge life cycle. Replacement parts are freely available for all of the wearing components, so why not fix the cartridge and use it again?
You wouldn’t scrap your car just because the shock absorbers are worn and it has run out of fuel – you would replace the worn out components and refill the tank.
A typical laser toner cartridge is made from:
150g of toner (good for about 3000 printed pages)
80g of non-wearing plastic parts
20g of wearing plastic parts
15g of wearing metal parts
20g of other non wearing parts
Total cartridge weight when full: 285g
Total cartridge weight empty 145g
At the end of the life cycle, the cartridge has used about 140g of toner and worn out 35g of plastic and metal parts. If these parts are replaced, and the cartridge is cleaned and refilled with toner, the cartridge will be capable of printing a further 3000 pages, preventing 115g of plastic and metal from going to landfill.