Reusable Planet makes fundraising Earth Day friendly for schools, non-profits and others

CLEVELAND, Tenn. (April 20, 2006) – Is there such a thing as environmentally-friendly fundraising? Absolutely, according to Dan Salazar, president of Reusable Planet, a company that is pioneering the notion of fundraising that actually helps the environment by offering remanufactured inkjet cartridges and toners. Reusable Planet also provides a recycling program to keep printer ink cartridges out of landfills.

Reusable Planet is a web-based business that offers schools across the country (and other groups and organizations) an earth-friendly way to raise money. Equipped with what it calls “Three Green Ways to Fundraise,” students embrace reuse as a responsible form of recycling while conducting a two-week remanufactured printer cartridge pre-sell campaign.

“School kids have been doing all kinds of things for many years to raise funds for their schools – everything from book fairs to the sale of candy, snacks and even gift-wrap paper,” Salazar said. “We envisioned something a little different – fund-raising that generates much-needed money while actually helping the environment at the same time.”

Students first collect a portion of the sales price for their school or classroom projects. Next, they collect empty printer cartridges and sell them for cash to ReusablePlanet.com. And finally, school members, employees, friends and supporters may purchase additional printing supplies online, with proceeds benefiting the school year-round.

“It's healthier than selling candy or other snack foods, it's a more welcome product than gift-wrapping paper, and it's great for the environment,” Salazar said, “potentially keeping tons of waste out of landfills and reducing the use of non-renewable resources during the production process of printer cartridges.”

Personal computers have increased productivity and made our lives easier in countless ways, to be sure. But one downside is the sheer number of old ink cartridges that get thrown away. Industry experts estimate that about a million ink cartridges are thrown away every single day, and less than 10 percent of them are recycled.

What’s worse, it may take between five and 10 centuries for those plastic ink jet cartridges to decompose in landfills.

“Environmentally, there is even more of a downside than that,” said Salazar. “It takes about three quarts of non-renewable oil to manufacture a toner cartridge. Recycling those cartridges makes sense in a number of ways.”

Reusing cartridges also saves energy. Significantly less energy is used to remanufacture a cartridge than to produce a new one, saving energy and the natural resources used to produce power.

To learn more about ink jet recycling, fund-raising and Reusable Planet, visit www.reusableplanet.com.

ABOUT REUSABLE PLANET
Reusable Planet is a web-based business that offers enlightened – and fun – new ways for schools and other organizations to raise money while being kind to the environment. Youngsters can raise money while “giving back” to their community and the environment. To learn more, visit www.reusableplanet.com.