The never ending conflict between saving money & aving the planet has hit printer ink

[Katymac]

I need Hewlitt Packard inkjet cartridges

The cheapest way to buy is a 363 pack which has all 5 colours plus a black plus photo paper. I know have a shopping bag full of photo paper & pale pink/pale blue cartridges that I will never use

If I buy the 3 colours pack & the black separately it is about £5-£10 more expensive

So I have to waste all this stuff - it is frustrating and not very eco, but £10 on a £30 pack is a lot of money

[nymphadora]

Freecycle the rest?

[Takver]

What printer have you got? You can refill the ink cartridges on a lot of them - see link here
Or if you do a lot of printing then a Continuous Ink System like this (they do them for most of of the HP printers) is fab, you need to hack your printer a bit but then you just have a bottle of ink on your desk & refill it whenever it gets low.
Otherwise, could you give away the unwanted photo paper & cartridges? Someone's bound to want them.

[clop]

Flog unwanteds on Ebay?

[Katymac]

I guess

I have 2300 sheets of photo paper & 12 pale pink & 12 pale blue

I don't think I can refill - the cartridges have chips in I think

[Takver]

They do have chips in, but you can generally fool them by cycling through 3 cartridges (we just have them labelled A, B & C, & you put in the next in the line, so to speak)

[Katymac]

Oh WOW that CIS looks good

WOuld it invalidate my guarantee? (if I does I just won't fit it until after the guarantee is up)

[Takver]

I guess it would - but they are great, we've had them on two printers now and its just sooo much better than messing around with refilling.

[Katymac]

I have a photosmart C7200 so I'll have a look to see if I can do this CIS thing

I also like the cycling 3 cartridges - I'll have a look at that too

[Takver]

Have a search, there's lots of people out there on t'net trying to work their way round the endless tiny cartridges. We've had a 5150, 5652, and 8000, and we (well to be fair DH who is good at this sort of thing!) managed to get something as an alternative on all of them.

[madlentileater]

we buy recycled ones at work, and they take the empties (Epson I think) no probs.
also, I nearly always print draft quality=it's good enough for most things.
and use both sides of the paper of course