| The Basic Issue - Avoiding The Corporate Cartridge | | | | required to refill an inkjet cartridge - all that's needed |
| Gouge | | | | is just basic common sense and a minimum of manual |
| Inkjet printers are truly incredible - but unfortunately, | | | | dexterity, plus a desire to save a very tidy sum of |
| so are the prices for replacement cartridges from the | | | | cash for our own use that would otherwise fatten a |
| printer manufacturers. Everyone knows their prices | | | | mega-corporation bottom line. |
| are utterly outrageous, but some very clever - and | | | | Refilling a cartridge is little more than a repeat of the |
| effective - marketing techniques have convinced | | | | original process - filling a small plastic box with ink - |
| most of us to land-fill our empty cartridges and buy | | | | and the effort is worth a significant amount of |
| attractively-packaged, exorbitantly-priced | | | | money over the lifetime of a printer. Refilling black |
| replacements. | | | | cartridges alone saves hundreds of dollars - much |
| These tactics are used by the printer manufacturers | | | | more than the purchase price of the printer itself. |
| - the O.E.M.s - because their business model bottom | | | | Best of all, there's now available a detailed, |
| line is based on built-in obsolescence pushed to an | | | | informative consumer "how to" guide and a new |
| extreme: discard a product - still in a perfectly | | | | generation of refilling technology. Small computer |
| functional condition - after a one-time use. Clearly, | | | | system users interested in dramatically reducing their |
| emptying an ink reservoir is not a valid reason to | | | | printing costs finally have the tools that eliminate the |
| trash a cartridge, but that's the message consumers | | | | major concerns - both real and imagined - about |
| have long been sold on. | | | | refilling inkjet cartridges. |
| Franchised operations such as Cartridge World and an | | | | So let's dispel the pre-conceived notions and |
| expanding list of major retailers - even drug stores | | | | re-consider consumer-level inkjet cartridge refilling |
| like Walgreens - have finally shattered the negative | | | | with a new, clear perspective. For once, we can |
| images and myths promoted by the O.E.M.s regarding | | | | refuse to be taken advantage of by yet another |
| refilled cartridges. With refilling credibility now firmly | | | | predatory corporate grab. We can become self-reliant |
| established, it's high time for consumers to give | | | | consumers - or we can willingly continue to be |
| serious consideration to refilling their own cartridges. | | | | corporately taken. Either way, the choice is up to us... |
| Fortunately, a degree in nuclear engineering isn't | | | | |