Canada Empty Printer Cartridge Recycling Guide

There are many Canada-wide and local services that recycle empty cartridges, and we've put together this guide to help find the best solution for you.

⚠️ Got any full / unused cartridges?

If you have full & unused cartridges still sealed in their packaging, do not recycle them or return them to your manufacturer — send them to CartridgeForest who plant 2 trees with partner Trees for the Future for every unused cartridge they can reuse:

Recycle Full Cartridges

Empty/Used Cartridge Options

Option 1. Konica Minolta's Clean Planet Program

If you have at least 20 cartridges (ink or toner), or 20lbs in weight of cartridges to send, Konica Minolta's Clean Planet Program will give you a free UPS ground shipping label you can use to send them for recycling. They even take pallet-quantities if you have that many cartridges.

They accept any brands of printer cartridge, not just Konica Minolta.

Register with Konica Minolta

Option 2. In-Store Recycling Programs

Staples, Best Buy, London Drugs and most other office supplies stores take empty cartridges in-store for recycling.

Some will offer you a discount on the purchase of toners when you bring in your empties, but beware that their prices may be overinflated on these products before the discount anyway.

Option 3. Return to Manufacturer

Most cartridge manufacturers have free Canada-wide take-back schemes — shipping and disposal costs are paid for by them — that will accept cartridges for reuse, or to break down the materials for recycling.

These services only accept original / genuine cartridges that they manufactured and not generic / compatible versions made by copy brands.

Hewlett Packard (HP)

HP have free services for their entire range of cartridges. You can drop off your empties at a retail store, print off a postage-paid label, request free collection boxes or arrange a pickup.

Brother

Brother runs a free service to return your toner cartridges using printable pre-paid postage labels, and you'll get a 30% coupon code for your next purchase through their web site. You do not need to check the box for promotional emails.

Canon

Canon allow return of multiple empty toner/laser cartridges by printing off a postage-paid Purolator label.

Dell

Dell no longer offers a postal return service for their ink and toner cartridges. Please try the other options in this main empty cartridge recycling guide.

Epson

Epson can recycle your empty inkjet cartridges, but requires you to cover the cost of postage. Mail your package to the address they show on their page.

Kodak

Kodak does not offer a Canadian cartridge recycling program.

Konica Minolta

Konica Minolta accept returns of cartridges from any manufacturer. They collect for free by UPS, can offer you free collection boxes to store your empty cartridges in if you have many of them, and collect by pallet if you have more than 100 toner cartridges.

Kyocera Mita

Their cartridge recycling service for toner cartridges is free, and they pay the postage to return your boxes by Canada Post. You just need to print off the pre-paid label and attach a copy to every box you wish to send.

Lexmark

Lexmark offer free postage-paid labels for toner/laser cartridges only via Purolator (not for ink cartridges).

Recycle Lexmark toner/laser cartridges

Neopost

New Neopost cartridges come with a prepaid return label for your old cartridge. If you have misplaced this, please get in touch with Quadrient (who own the Neopost brand) instead for a replacement.

Oki

Oki previously offered a free service to collect their own brand of toner cartridges using Purolator. Please enquire from this link with Oki directly to see what options are available to you under your service contract.

Panasonic

Panasonic have not produced printers in over a decade, and no longer have a recycling option.

Ricoh

Some of Ricoh's cartridges can be recycled locally using your municipality's recycling services. If this isn't the case, you can use a pre-paid label to return them to Ricoh. If you use a higher than normal quantity of Ricoh cartridges, they can offer free boxes, collections or pallet pickups.

Samsung

HP now take care of Samsung's toner cartridges -- please contact HP at this link.

Sharp

Your Sharp cartridges can be returned to them for free using a prepaid Canada Post postage label that you can print from their web site.

Toshiba

Toshiba provide a paid-for recycling program through their dealer network, but there are plenty of free alternatives that also take any other brands of cartridge also — look for alternatives below.

Xerox

Xerox offer free return via their Eco Box system for most of their cartridges, collected by Purolator.

Option 4. Return to Your Cartridge Supplier

If your manufacturer does not have a takeback scheme, some suppliers of cartridges will offer to take back the empties. Please ask your supplier to see if this is something they can offer you.

Option 5. Refill at a Cartridge Refill Shop

If you can't find somewhere to recycle your cartridge, you may like to have your cartridge refilled at a cartridge refill shop, like Cartridge World shops, saving the need to send it away and saving money on your new cartridges.

Most cities have shops dedicated to refilling cartridges, and will normally be happy to take your empty cartridges if you get them refilled there.

Find Cartridge Refill Stores Near Me

Why Recycle Empty Cartridges?

75% of empty cartridges are not recycled even though there are plenty of reuse and recycling options, and many of them are free and easy to use.

A typical cartridge, with its plastics and electronics, will take up to 1,000 years to degrade in a landfill site, but having an empty cartridge reused saves up to 2.5kg of CO2 compared to making a new cartridge from scratch.

everycartridge.com is here to help you to find and use the many services that exist locally and nationally, and cut through the misinformation to ensure that your cartridges do not go to landfill.