Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We're all familiar with this "green mantra." Now, a firm called Discount Recycle Ink(DRI) in Maplewood, MN is giving new life to unwanted ink throughout the Midwest by adding a fourth "R" - remanufacture. Blending waste process ink into black is nothing new – it’s going on at many large, heat-set web facilities every week. But Discount Recycle Ink’s twist is that they work with sheet-fed, heat-set, and cold-set printers of all sizes to reclaim waste and obsolete ink and remanufacture it into a color-matched black that, its says, prints as well or better than the virgin stuff. And they do it at or below the price of virgin ink. (Interestingly enough, according to DRI’s Account Manager Nick Blees, it is the smaller shops that see a greater savings by repurchasing their remanufactured ink. Seems the big ink users are already getting price-breaks.) Here’s how the process works, in a nutshell. A printing facility puts its uncontaminated waste ink and obsolete inks into a container – typically a 55-gallon drum, and ship the ink to DRI. The printer also includes a sample of the virgin black ink it wants DRI to match. DRI filters the waste ink, adds bases, oils, flushers, and driers, if necessary, and then color-blends the remanufactured ink to match the printer’s sample A sample of the remanufactured ink is sent to the printer for a test run. When the ink is approved, DRI packages the ink into they type of container specified by the printer – cans, kits, cartridges, totes, or drums – and ships it off. According to DRI’s Nick Blees, printers that repurchase remanufactured ink realize savings in a number of ways. In addition to the potential savings of remanufactured versus virgin black ink, print facilities save on disposal costs, which can be substantial. In addition, the reclamation of waste ink (in lieu of disposal) also can put the facility in a more advantageous permit bracket. To these areas of cost savings, Blees notes, a printer gets the marketable benefit of promoting a better environment, with less waste going to landfill and incineration. Only a year old, DRI has already established a solid foothold in the Midwest, and has established sales representation in the New York area. Blees believes the plant has the capacity to serve printers across the nation, and is looking forward to the day when more print facilities recognize the cost benefits of reclaiming, remanufacturing and repurchasing their ink.