There are three different types of printer cartridges: OEM, Compatible, and Remanufatured printer cartridges. An OEM cartridge is a printer cartridge manufactured by the original
manufacturer of your printer (e.g. HP, Lexmark, Canon, Epson, Konica-Minolta, Panasonic, etc.). A compatible cartridge is the printer cartridge not manufactured by the original manufacturer of your printer but will function and work the same way that an OEM cartridge will work. A remanufactured cartridge is an OEM cartridge that has been used but are recycled and refilled with ink or toner.Many people are now using remanufactured ink and toner cartridges as they are the least expensive and most eco-friendly type of printer cartridges. Using these cartridges have some advantages and disadvantages which you are going to learn below.
The main advantage of using remanufactured ink and toner cartridges is their cheaper price. They are cheaper printer cartridge alternatives for printer brands like Okidata, HP, Epson, Lexmark, and Okidata that cannot use compatible printer cartridges for legal reasons. These printer manufacturers produce some models of printer cartridges with complex designs and technology that cannot be copied legally due to copyright reasons.
The quality of remanufactured cartridges depends on the remanufacturer. There are remanufacturers that ensure the quality of their products by following strict industry standards. They make sure that the recycled OEM cartridges are clean and in good condition before refilling them with ink or toner. They also test whether the finished end products are actually working before shipping them out to customers. To get the best remanufactured cartridges, make sure that you are buying from trusted remanufacturers.
Another advantage of remanufactured cartridge is its good impact to the environment. With every empty cartridge that is being remanufactured, the volume of empty cartridges diverted to landfills is reduced. Thus, instead of throwing away your empty cartridges, you can recycle or refill them to help save our environment.
The main disadvantage of remanufactured cartridge is it cannot mass-produced. The number of re-usable empty or used toner cartridges will determine the volume of remanufactured cartridges in the market. However, this is becoming a problem of the past as the number of discarded and recycled empty cartridges is growing every year. The new problem is whether users are responsible enough to recycle their spent cartridges instead of throwing them away.
Another disadvantage of remanufactured cartridge is quality. There are remanufacturers that are more concerned with lower price instead of quality. Fortunately, there are now remanufacturers that are more concerned with quality and customer satisfaction. We can always look on trusted remanufacturers like ColorTonerExpert and TonerGreen for high quality remanufactured toner and ink cartridges. These remanufacturers observe full quality control process for every stage of production such as cleaning, refilling, reassembling, and testing the end products.
