Lexmark International, Inc. (NYSE: LXK) sells printing and imaging products and solutions in more than 150 countries and reported $3.9 billion in revenue in 2009. By designing with the environment in mind, Lexmark engineers products and packaging to reduce impacts in production and chooses materials with the widest range of opportunities for recovery and reuse. Close the Loop is a resource recovery company, founded in late 2000 in Australia. The primary purpose of the company is to give OEM manufacturers of printing equipment a way to collect consumables and recycle them in a responsible fashion. Close the Loop uses patented processes to recover the plastic, ink, and toner in inkjet and toner cartridges to bring the materials back into the manufacturing process or use them as raw materials for new products. We spoke with John Gagel, Manager of Sustainable Practices at Lexmark, and Jim Tocash, President of Close the Loop, about their partnership recycling plastic and ink from Lexmark inkjet cartridges. “When you look at design for environment, you work with your suppliers at the very beginning of the design phase to consider the end of life handling,” said John. “We want the materials we use to make our products to have as small an impact as possible, at the same time we look for materials that give us the most opportunities for application at the end.” An inkjet cartridge is actually made up of a number of materials: plastic, metal, ink, and foam. Because Close the Loop collects a lot of ink, the company wanted to find ways to use that ink in new ways. Why a pen? There is a natural connection between the original form of putting an image on a page – pen and ink – and putting an image on a sheet of paper with an inkjet printer. It’s an easy connection for an imaging company! “The pen is a great way to show consumers what happens when they recycle their inkjet cartridges,” said Jim. “It shows that we can turn them into something of value.” Watch the following video to see how the pen came about. Turning inkjet cartridges into pens is not a quick process; it took more than 18 months to bring the pen to the point where it could be commercialized. Sometime around the middle of 2010 you will find these on retail shelves and you’ll be able to write with a pen made of recycled plastic and filled with recycled ink. Because Lexmark has a goal of “zero waste to landfill” they also collect and reuse toner as an additive for concrete. And the company is researching using the captured and recycled plastics in their own products in a true “cradle to cradle” system.