Recycling of Waste Toner in the Republic of Croatia - An Environmentally Friendly Approach

Large amounts of waste toner cartridges have been generated as a consequence of their use in printers and duplicators on an everyday basis. Waste toner cartridges contain heavy metals, plastics, as well as toxic residual toner powder, and have been characterized as hazardous waste. Therefore the management of waste toner cartridge content presents a significant issue in environmental protection. The use of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment, as well as promoting the collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods was prescribed by EU legislation, particularly the WEEE Directive and, together with the RoHS Directive, has been in force since February 2003. In order to concur with the WEEE Directive, a system for the management of electrical and electronic waste has been established in the Republic of Croatia five years ago, but there was no practical possibility for the treatment of collected waste toner cartridges. In this work, a study of the possibility of waste toner cartridges and further recycling and reuse has been performed, with special emphasis on the reuse of the residual toner powder. In order to decrease explosive properties of the residual toner powder, the material was mixed with calcite. After performed analyses of the mixture it was found that the mixture cannot be disposed of on landfill sites as inert waste material, since the value of the total organic carbon content (TOC) has found to be above the limit prescribed by the law. All other analyzed parameters have found to be below the limits prescribed by the law. Moreover, it was found that the mixture of residual toner powder, which contains 10 % of calcite, is an excellent bitumen additive, since it improves its application properties. So, the mixture of the residual toner powder and calcite can be used as a valuable raw material in the production of bituminous products and in different construction works.