Learn how to recycle your old or unwanted printer responsibly with this simple guide.
Whether you have an old printer that’s collecting dust or you recently upgraded to a new machine, recycling is a great way to free up some office space and dispose of your printer responsibly. Here, we’ll explore four simple ways to recycle your printer so you can help make a difference in our environment.
Locate a local recycling facility
Recycling your printer locally is an obvious win for the environment and the benefits of those recycled materials stay in your community too! If you are not sure where the closest recycling facility is, we recommend visiting Earth911.com. Their site features a convenient recycling facility locator that provides a list of local recycling facilities in just a few clicks! Local e-waste collection events are another solid option. Cities and businesses host e-waste events frequently and they make it easy to dispose of electronics like computer monitors, televisions, shredders and of course, printers.
Drop your printer off at a local office supply store
Check the website of your local office supply store to see if they accept recycled electronics – most major stores will gladly accept old printers free of charge!
Turn your printer into cash
Selling your printer is always an option if you would rather try to make a little cash. Post your printer on an online marketplace site like ebay, Craigslist, Facebook marketplace or NextDoor classifieds. Or, try selling it a community garage sale!
Donate your printer
If you’ve recently replaced your printer, look into donating your old printer to a local community center, senior center or classroom. You can also sell your printer on Ebay for Charity and donate the proceeds towards a favorite cause like the Red Cross or the Humane Society. Over 4 million people sell unwanted items on Ebay for Charity every year and they partner with 25,000 different charities! Don’t forget to include the power cord, user’s manual and USB cable along with your donation.
Before recycling your printer, make sure you prep the machine for proper disposal. Remove the printer cartridges from inside the printer and recycle those too. Anywhere that accepts an old printer will likely accept your printer cartridges! For additional recycling tips, check out our cartridge recycling blog article. We hope you found this guide helpful…if you have any printer recycling tips of your own that you’d like to share, feel free to drop us a line in the comments.
Hi Eric – Best Buy has a great printer recycling promo – you get 15% off any HP printer if you turn in a printer for recycling. You can turn in any printer of any make. I used it a couple of years ago. They print out the 15% off coupon at Customer Service and then you can shop for an HP. It would be even more awesome if you could get 15% off any make, not just HP, but them’s the breaks…
Thanks for sharing, Joe!
Please stop telling people to donate OLD obsolete stuff to SENIOR CENTERS!! I run a nice senior center and we don’t want people’s rejects, because most don’t work and then WE get to try to dispose of them.
Tech-savvy seniors like to have new, fully functioning technology and electronics that actually work.
Most “donations” of printers are ones that have dried out, don’t work properly, and are incompatible with newer computers. There are some exceptions, and we recently got a nice one from another nonprofit, but 95% of printers donated are not any good. This means I get 1 good printer, and have to find something to do with 19 that are bad…
I am sorry you are having so much trouble with used printers, I too have a printer I need to recycle as I’ve upgraded and thought of senior centers as well. I will forgo the senior center and just toss it into a drum at the recycle place, it works and all, it’s a Brother all in one, but I’ve had it for more than 12 years and it has worked on all the computers I’ve owned since. I was or am having trouble downloading the drivers from Brother. I do have the driver disk to it, But like I said it is 12 years old, So thank you for the heads up about giving it away to a senior center.