[greenyes] Epson Email Alert - stop the burn, start refilling

["Monica Wilson" <mwilson@no.address>]

Dear all,

GAIA (the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) placed email action
on our website, please visit http://www.no-burn.org/action/epson.html if you
want to send an email. Please share this alert with others.

It would be great if other networks like the CTBC would circulate an alert
to their email lists and campus and other contacts, and put their own alert
on their websites or link to the page above.

Please share more ideas about how we can get Epson to start refilling these
cartridges. An alert went out to 11,000 people on the CorpWatch corporate
accountability email list last week.

Giving Epson input from recycling professionals is so critical, keep up the
great work.

Let the refilling begin!
Monica
--
Monica Wilson
GAIA: Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/ Global Anti-Incinerator
Alliance, http://www.no-burn.org
1442A Walnut St #20, Berkeley, CA 94709 USA
+1-510-883-9490  ext. 2#
mwilson@no.address


-----Original Message-----
From: Anne Peters [mailto:annep@no.address]
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 8:14 AM
To: greenyes
Subject: [greenyes] [Fwd: Re: [greenyes] Fwd: A Message From Epson]


  Sorry if you've heard from me twice. I got an error message saying
this posting didn't go to greenyes.
Jenny et al --
SVTC isn't working on this issue, but many e_takeback and CTBC/SVTC
folks are on this listserve. Sounds like it needs to come to that forum
for consideration.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [greenyes] Fwd: A Message From Epson
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 08:53:35 -0600
From: Anne Peters <annep@no.address>
To: Alan Muller <amuller@no.address>
CC: Jenny Gitlitz <jenny.gitlitz@no.address>, greenyes
<greenyes@no.address>, gaia-members@no.address
References: <6.0.1.1.0.20040930064036.02d22310@no.address>
<BD818978.3F8F%jenny.gitlitz@no.address>
<6.0.1.1.0.20040930102808.03057be8@no.address>



Alan is correct. Actually, most printer companies sell lower-end
printers at a loss (that's why they're so unbelievably cheap), but make
it up on the cartridges, where, as mentioned, there is significant
profit margin.  Likely it is difficult to acheive the same profit margin
on refilled cartridges versus new, where the economies & efficiency of
mass production are greater.  Hence Epson's desire to shut off all
refill avenues for their prniters.   It kind of suggests a boycott of
Epson printers, doesn't it?

I hope many of the folks on the e_takeback listserve have been
cross-posted to this discussion, because it sounds like the electronics
takeback campaign might be a good place to "house" this printer
cartridge action (not that CTBC needs more to do!). If nothing else,
there is a need for the good type of public education Wayne Turner
mentioned in his letter, so consumers can choose printers where
less-expensive refillable cartridges are more readily available because
the primary manufacturer has not shut off that avenue of supply.

Anne Peters

Gracestone, Inc.
Boulder, CO
303.494.4934 vox
303.494.4880 fax


Alan Muller wrote:

> Hi Jenny and others:
>
> I don't know too much about this part of the printer business, and I
> have no time/energy to get into the controversy in a major way.
>
> But I would speculate that for Epson the profits are in the
> consumables rather than in the printers themselves.  So they probably
> have an incentive to (1) keep the cartridges from becoming a
> commodity--that is, available from multiple sources at competitive
> pricing, and (2) to destroy the cartridges to keep people from having
> an opportunity to figure out how to refill them.
>
> If they can pretend at the same time to be doing good works, it's just
> a bonus for them.
>
> You are quite right that their defense of incineration is just the
> usual bullshit.
>
> Laser printer people (or at least HP) have been taking empty
> cartridges back for years.  Do we know what gets done with these?  I
> have noticed that the cores have little value locally, and clones seem
> as common as rebuilts.
>
> Regards,
>
> Alan