With the millions of users of Xerox printers, we can also expect millions of empty Xerox printer cartridges that are disposed worldwide. How and where will these tons of cartridges will disposed is up to the consumers. It is not uncommon to see people and business establishments throwing away empty Xerox cartridges in trash cans. It is also not uncommon to meet people who are ignorant on the proper way of disposing spent cartridges. Throwing away empty cartridges is an irresponsible act against the environment which is already damaged due to our irresponsible activities. When thrown to the outside environment, say landfills, printer cartridges release toxic compounds that can pollute soil, water, and air. Imagine the amount of toxic substances released in the environment if million tons of Xerox print cartridges are dumped in landfills. You need to know that cartridges are not like plants and animals that can be decomposed by natural means. Majority of the parts of a cartridge are non-biodegradable or cannot be decomposed by microorganisms. In fact, there are materials in the cartridge that are made up of sturdy polymers that take hundreds or even thousands of years to disintegrate. With the growing public demand for corporate social responsibility, many printer cartridge manufacturers like Xerox are developing recycling programs to reduce the volume of cartridges dumped in landfills or elsewhere. They also continuously improve their manufacturing process to reduce waste up to zero. Moreover, environmentally-friendly materials are being used to minimize the amount of toxic substances released in the environment. Xerox, one of the leaders and movers of the printer supply industry, has been collecting empty toner cartridges for years now. It has a worldwide program called Xerox Green World Alliance which is boasting 145 million pounds of waste out of landfills since its launch several years ago. A great bulk of these million pounds of waste is empty cartridges. Xerox collects these cartridges from customers and recycles them. They use the various parts of the recycled cartridges to make brand new ones for sale. Some of these parts can actually be recycled more than twice depending on their conditions. Returning genuine Xerox print cartridges for recycling is easy and free. Whatever the number of cartridges you are willing to return, Xerox will gladly accept them. All you need to do is go to the official site of Xerox and look for the page about Green World Alliance Program. In this page, you can request an eco box with ready to use shipping label. Put your empty cartridges in the box, seal it properly, and hand it over to UPS which will handle the shipping of your eco box. That's it my friend, you are done. Recycling empty cartridges is only one of the simple ways that you can do help mother earth recover from the damages we already inflicted into her. Recycle now and make mother earth happy.