Printer question

[DYLAN150]

I have two old printers to get rid of. Could someone extract data from them, just wondering? Maybe the goodwill would take them. (their in good condition)

[df04527]

Goodwill won't take them (well at least here they won't). We ended up taking them to our county dump who then turns them into recycle by stripping them apart. There is nothing stored on the printer (once the page has printed).

[Floridagail]

First, determine if your printer or MFP has a hard disk drive installed. Some printers do have hard drive. Google it . Ours does.

[AngelinaCat]

Most places will not take old printers or monitors. We have a salvage yard here that will take old computers and give you a buck or two for them, but they won't take the monitors or printers. Our landfill has a contract with some company to strip the copper and gold out of some of them.

Printers are so cheap these days--the replacement ink is where the money is made--that the thrifts can't make any money on them to resell.

[ksgirl38]

If they work you may find places in your area that are willing to take them. Sometimes charities or Big Brothers Big Sisters, schools or some other charities will take them. I've heard some tech schools will take them for students to practice on. Craigslist is an option. Most places will charge you to recycle printers or monitors, but I did give a monitor to Goodwill.

[bcohen]

Unless this is a large, floorstanding unit, or a high-end laser printer designed for corporate use (something designed to print tens of thousands of pages in a month), it does not contain any non-volatile storage. Only enterprise-class workgroup printers/MFC's contain hard drives, and the purpose of that is to allow the unit to store documents in order to reprint them later. This feature does not exist in any printer sold for home or small office use, although certain HP Laserjets did have a hard drive module which was available separately at significant extra cost.

My advice is to try and sell the printers cheap on Craigslist (such as for $5 each) if they work, or to toss them in the recycle bin if they don't. No one can "steal" your data from them.

[tobee43]

wow...try st vincent de paul...they take them. we brought them old computers and actually it was a new printers and they took them. i got a nice receipt for my taxes as well.

[InOverHead]

sometimes staples/officedepot/max etc will give you trade in credit.

Also, some online places that do trade ins like gazelle, amazon, best buy there are many...they will send a prepaid label.
They are best for small stuff but it's worth a shot to see if yours has any value.

[Flowers]

I have a great old (2007) printer. Now each toner cartridge costs MORE than what a new printer would be.
Technology is amazing.
(I have taken to printing the few pages I do print at the public library for 15 cents a page).

[ksgirl38]

I have a friend in IT that just buys a new printer each time the cartridge runs out. It's actually less expensive.

[GoingDown]

I have a friend in IT that just buys a new printer each time the cartridge runs out. It's actually less expensive.

I do the same thing!

I bought my last printer at walmart for less than it would cost to just buy the two ink cartridges.

I also print very little anymore. I use Google Chrome and Google Drive and when I want to print something I use the Save To PDF option first, and then I wait a while and see if I really needed to print it after all, and usually I find that just zapping the PDF up to Google Drive is sufficient. I didn't really need to print it at all. And if I ever do need to print it, the page is preserved perfectly for me later on Google Drive, just waiting for me.

[AngelinaCat]

I was at the landfill today dropping off some stuff, and there was an HP printer sitting there. It looked like it was brand new. I was tempted to pick it up and bring it home, but didn't.

[bcohen]

I have a friend in IT that just buys a new printer each time the cartridge runs out. It's actually less expensive.

If your friend REALLY wanted to save money, he'd refill the cartridge himself, which for the black one is not too difficult. I used to do that, when I had an inkjet printer, but being a student, I print so much that I had to go laser.

Also, people should be aware that most printers, whether they are inkjet or laser come with so-called "starter cartridges" which are only partially full. So buying a new printer is not the good deal that it seems, especially if you print a lot.

[ksgirl38]

If your friend REALLY wanted to save money, he'd refill the cartridge himself, which for the black one is not too difficult. I used to do that, when I had an inkjet printer, but being a student, I print so much that I had to go laser.

Also, people should be aware that most printers, whether they are inkjet or laser come with so-called "starter cartridges" which are only partially full. So buying a new printer is not the good deal that it seems, especially if you print a lot.

I wouldn't recommend refilling a cartridge. I ruined a printer that way.

[GoingDown]

I wouldn't recommend refilling a cartridge. I ruined a printer that way.

I've tried doing it myself and it was a horrible mess.

I even tried having someone else do it for me, who supposedly specialized in doing it the right way-- at a store which sold printer cartridges-- and it left streaks on the printed pages.

Overall, I try to avoid printing if I can avoid it at all. With Google Chrome the default print page lets you save the whole series of pages you were going to print as PDF rather than printing it, and I find that I really didn't need to print it out most of the time, as long as I can quickly find and pull up the PDF to read the information on my computer.