ReSoCart-ED

Developing and emerging countries, especially in Asia, are currently the fastest-growing markets for office printing products. This results in very high consumption of toner cartridges from laser printers and copiers. Original "OEM cartridges" can usually be used several times ("re-use"), even if this is currently mostly undesired by the manufacturers. After that, they reach the end of their life cycle. For so-called "newbuild" toner cartridges from other manufacturers, this usually applies after single use due to their design. Both "types" of toner cartridges have in common that they not only contain valuable raw materials, but also numerous pollutants. Their incineration or therefore landfilling, therefore, leads to both avoidable resource consumption and significant pollution of soil, air, and water. From an ecological point of view, it is therefore essential that toner cartridges are recycled after use if they can no longer be reused. However, recycling the cartridges is relatively comlicated due to the residual toner dust, which is hazardous to health, contaminates the reusable materials, and can cause dust explosions during processing.

For these reasons, recycling requires specialized expertise and has not yet been implemented in the target countries of this project. On the other hand, German plant engineers and planners are among the best experts in Europe, which is why the export of these technologies could make a valuable contribution to improving the environmental situation in the target countries and open up new markets for German companies. This project investigates the feasibility of an economically viable end-of-life solution for toner cartridges in the target country Ghana as a model for the West African region. The aim is to gain initial insights into feasibility that could lead to further steps in the target country. At the same time, Ghana will be used as an example to develop a methodology that will facilitate implementation in other emerging and developing countries.