Whether at home or at the office, there are few appliances as frustrating as a printer. They frequently get jammed, disconnect from the Wi-Fi, and it seems like you’re constantly throwing away and replacing those single-use printer cartridges. Well, maybe that last complaint won’t be an issue for much longer. The city council of Los Angeles has acknowledged the wasteful and environmentally harmful nature of single-use printer cartridges and is taking steps to ban them entirely. The question now is whether other jurisdictions will follow this positive example.
In December 2025, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted in favor of the ban on single-use printer cartridges. The effort to ban these cartridges has been going on for longer than that, though. City Councilmember John Lee proposed this ban as early as August 2024. A press release issued at that time emphasized the role that Los Angeles has played in pioneering environmentally friendly policies. The city already banned single-use carryout bags and expanded polystyrene products, so it’s only fitting for the city –- and the rest of the nation, ideally –- to continue the good work.
Single-use printer cartridges are bad for the environment
The action proposed by the Los Angeles City Council aims to promote the refilling or recycling of single-use printer cartridges. There is no intent to disrupt the printer or ink cartridge industries, but the wastefulness of single-use cartridges cannot be ignored. These are non-biodegradable plastic cartridges that ultimately end up in landfills that are already destructive to the planet, and continue to burden the environment for thousands of years. Something as simple as a take-back program would go a long way toward addressing the issue.
Los Angeles strives to be a green city, setting goals to create over 100,000 green jobs and supply hundreds of thousands of homes with clean energy. That’s why Los Angeles is helming the effort to get rid of single-use printer cartridges as well. It’s also why other cities should follow suit; Los Angeles has proven that positive change is viable and beneficial. With any luck, harmful ink cartridges might be on their way out for good.
Printer companies tend to prioritize profit
Printer manufacturers are often accused of following a “razor-and-blade” business practice. This means that they sell you a one-time purchase item, but require you to keep buying temporary-use items to actually do anything with it. That temporary-use item in this case would be the ink cartridge, and printer companies make so much money off of them that it’s easy to ignore the environmental impact. Unfortunately, consumers also find it difficult to resist a good deal, even if it’s bad for the planet. Those single-use printer cartridges tend to be cheaper than a permanent solution, so the choice seems obvious to a financially-minded shopper.
One look at the most unreliable printer brands is enough to tell you that some companies simply don’t care about quality as long as they can still make money. On the flip side, certain individuals within the printer industry are actually participating in the movement to ban single-use cartridges. A public appeal sent to the Los Angeles City Council prior to the December 2025 vote came from an individual within the printer industry, urging the Council to vote in favor of the ban.
