Disposable Culture

[bcholmes]

The toner on my printer has run out.

I have an old IBM 4019 printer that I bought around-about 1991. It was the smallest laser printer on the market back then, and it has this really cool solid toner cartridge that lasts a long time. How long? Well, it's just run out now. Eleven years. Not bad, I say.

Thing is, replacing the toner cartridge is probably gonna be more expensive than just getting a whole new printer. And the printer doesn't have that much memory and I'd rather have something that had more than 300 DPI resolution.

So I'm thinking of getting a new printer.

But the idea of throwing away a printer because the toner cartridge ran out is really squicking me. Hmmm....

Comments

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Do you have any charities there that recycle old computer equipment? We have one here that takes old machines (such as 386s), reconditions them, and sends them to Africa. Anything that they can't get working gets stripped down for parts.