Nowadays we are all aware of how much we are responsible for the state of our planet's health.  The mantra 'Reduce, recycle and reuse' has been drummed into all of our heads and most of us think twice before discarding paper, metal or glass in our land fill destined rubbish bins.  Jet Tec Cartridges also takes their role in helping conserve the worlds resources very seriously.

How, without limiting doing what you need to do, can you reduce usage?  We have done our bit by reducing the size of our packaging – our new blister packs are substantially smaller than the previous packaging and replace the old cartons.  Simple but effective; much smarter is our approach to Epson ink jet cartridges. The Epson printer decides for you when the ink cartridge is empty, stopping printing at that point regardless of the fact that there is ink still left in the cartridge.  However, our super smart Extralife cartridges have a minute microprocessor  that will activate the extralife status so your machine can continue printing. An easy process, Extralife activation will either happen automatically or by simply turning off, pausing and restarting the printer.  Using all of the ink in each Jet Tec ink cartridge  means that less cartridges are needed to do the same job – instant reduction in use!  This is unique to us, 100% compatible with your printer and so impressed the experts that it won The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2004:-  innovative technology that is also tried and tested.

When it comes it recycling we are just as on the ball.  The blister packs mentioned above are made from recyclable materials and, wherever possible we use recyclable materials in the cartridges themselves.  This means that, even if a re manufactured cartridge is not available for your printer, the compatible cartridge we supply is also doing it's bit for the environment – no to mention your pocket!

Where we really pack a heavy eco punch is with the amount of re-use that Jet Tec enables. We work hand in hand with The Recycling Factory; an enterprise with offices, in both Britain and Germany, that collects used ink cartridges and toner cartridges.  TRF ensures they are checked, before any further process happens, to establish that they are working correctly.  They are then given a thorough and rigorous clean out to get rid of any ink left in the cartridge and the print head is also cleaned.  When we refill the cartridges, we fill them right to the top – often with more ink that they had when originally manufactured thus lasting longer and needing less frequent replacement. Our cartridges are all tested and taped ready for packaging – over 90% of cartridges collected for recycling are successfully re manufactured and sold for reuse. Our ranges of  Hewlett Packard, Dell and Lexmark cartridges are either largely or totally made from re manufactured cartridges   Every cartridge that is reused, rather than joining the millions sent to landfill every year, helps preserve our worlds resources.  The plastics and metals, that would otherwise take thousands of years to decompose, are not replaced by new materials but can be re-used again and again.

As part of providing the best product to our customers we address not just the cartridges but the actual ink contained in them. We no longer use pigmented but dye based ink instead.  This probably means very little to most people until some explanation of the difference in the nature of the two inks is made!   Essentially pigment inks are made up of tiny particles that sit on top of the paper whilst dye inks are absorbed into the actual fibres of the paper.  This means that, if you were to look closely at a piece of pigment ink printed paper you will see a rough surface rather than a surface almost as smooth as the paper was before you started printing.  Again, so what?  Well, when we see an image what we are actually detecting with our eye is light bounced back off the object, the smoother the surface the more intense and focussed the image we detect, the rougher the surface, the more the light will scatter and the less intense the resulting image will appear to our eye. Recent comparison tests of our inks against others on the market, both pigmented and dye-based. confirmed that Jet Tec’s dye-based inks give superior results in terms of colour match, fade-resistance light-fastness and image quality. The fast drying inks produce prints that, depending on the glossy coated media used can be water-resistant, making them ideally suited for photo printing. Compatible across a wide range of papers, Jet Tec cartridges perform consistently well all through the cartridge's life.  The dye based inks don't dry up in the printer nor in the printhead nozzles, clogging up the machine and forcing the user into ink wasting cleaning cycles that will also shorten the life of the printer.

In short using re-manufactured Jet Tec cartridges is good for the planet, good for your pocket, good for your prints and good for your printer!

If you have nimble fingers then a spot of DIY could save you even more money and also save on the time and transport involved in cartridge re manufacture.  The All Purpose Jet Tec Ink refill kit works with over 750 different printers and faxes and includes all you need to achieve the job:-3x 30ml bottles of black ink, bottle of cleaning fluid, syringe, needle, drill, bag of plugs and an instruction sheet.  We also have kits designed for the specific requirements of Hewlett Packard cartridge refill and those for  Dell and Lexmark, Epson and Canon printers. With these cartridge refill kits up to 6 times re-use can be achieved.  Epson cartridges do have to be tackled in a slightly different way than most.  Essentially they Epson cartridges come fitted with a memory chip which instructs the printer that the cartridge is empty, although not necessarily entirely so as described above. This means two things, there may still be ink lurking in the cartridge that you are about to throw away and also simply filling the cartridge will not get you anywhere.  Unless the printer believes the cartridge has ink in it, it will not print!  You need to 'reset' the chip so the cartridge can tell the printer it has ink in it, thus enabling it to restart using the cartridge.  We supply a re setter for Epson chipped cartridges and an adaptor for resetting newer single colour cartridges, essentially a device into which you insert the cartridge for few seconds and voilà – chip reset and printing enabled!

To get the best results from our fabulous Jet Tec Ink, we are delighted to now be able to offer Agfa Photo paper in both 240 and 260 gsm weights.  In the popular A4 and 6” x 4” sizes, these papers have been tested and proven to produce perfect results with our printer friendly dye based inks.

At Jet Tec the same rigorous approach is used to deal with our re manufactured Jet Tec toner cartridges.  The toner cartridge basically consists of the toner powder, very messy if not kept under control as anyone who has had an accident with a cartridge will testify, the drum and the developer unit.  The laser printer is designed for large numbers of copies it has been argued that, as with a new car, the drum has to be run in before the cartridge achieves optimum performance.  Some say that after 400-500 pages you will achieve good images, others that the cartridge will be at it's best at 2,500 to 3,000  pages!  As this is actually not too far from the point at which you start running out of toner you are in a cleft stick – the best images occur just as your new cartridge starts running out!   However, if you are using a re manufactured toner cartridge, some other person has already run the drum in for you and you may expect good images and consistency from the start. A brand new toner cartridge is an expensive item reflecting both the complex technology of the cartridge and the large number of prints one might expect from it. Unlike with ink cartridges, it is best not to tackle refilling a toner cartridge itself.  The mechanism is a little more complex, the potential for mess is huge and being a more expensive item in the first place the potential for financial loss arising from damaging the cartridge rather more serious.  With a re-manufactured one you can expect just as many prints as with a new cartridge but the possibility of a greater number of good quality ones at a substantial discount.  Each Jettec toner cartridge can be refilled up to 3 or four times depending on how heavy duty the use has been – again consider the savings to you or your company and the repercussions on the welfare of the environment – less land fill, less wastage of natural resources, less energy used than when being manufactured from scratch. Jet Tec are constantly striving to produce an ecologically sound range of products, designed to give peace of mind, confidence in service and quality, financial savings and great results with the minimum impact on the environment!