An environmental friendly recovery production line of waste toner cartridges

Quantity of waste toner cartridges has been generated following the increasing demand for printer and duplicator. Waste toner cartridge contains abundant valuable metals, plastics as well as toxic residual toner. Therefore, the recovery of waste toner cartridges is a meaningful subject, not only from waste treatment but also from environment protection. This study proposed a mechanical production line for recovering waste toner cartridges. The recovery process involved shearing process, magnetic separation, and eddy current separation. The recovery rates of steel (magnet), toner, aluminum, and plastic were 98.4%, 95%, 97.5%, and 98.8%, respectively. The results of the comparison between the production line and full manual dismantling indicated that the production line succeed in recovering waste toner cartridges. In addition, the proposed production line is an efficient and environmental friendly way for recovering waste toner cartridges.