IN Brief:
- Domino is offering Circular Planet collections to TIJ customers in the UK, Benelux, and Germany.
- Eligible non-hazardous cartridges will be consolidated and sent to a Belgian recycling facility.
- The scheme adds a structured reverse-logistics route for recurring print consumables generated across industrial and packaging operations.
Domino Printing Sciences has partnered with Close the Loop to give thermal inkjet customers in the UK, Benelux, and Germany a structured collection and recycling route for eligible used printer cartridges.
The arrangement brings Domino into Circular Planet, a multi-brand collection programme for printer consumables. Participating customers will be able to return non-hazardous TIJ cartridges through an established service rather than sending them into general commercial waste streams.
For industrial users, the individual waste item is small but persistent. Thermal inkjet equipment is commonly used on packaging and manufacturing lines to apply variable information such as dates, batch codes, barcodes, serial numbers, and product-identification data.
Each production line may generate only modest cartridge volumes, but the quantity becomes more significant across multiple printers, shifts, factories, and customer sites. That fragmented pattern is precisely what makes reverse logistics difficult: the item has too little value to justify a dedicated movement every time it becomes empty.
Circular Planet addresses the problem through aggregation. Eligible cartridges can be collected together before entering a consolidated return flow, spreading the transport and administration involved across more material.
Sara Kolber, Supply Chain and Logistics Coordinator at Domino Printing Sciences, said the company wanted a recycling route that customers could integrate into existing operations without creating a complicated additional process.
That ease of use matters because recycling schemes often fail at the point of disposal rather than at the recycling plant. If production staff do not know where an empty cartridge belongs, if eligibility is unclear, or if arranging collection creates too much administrative work, the material is likely to follow the simpler waste route already available on site.
The Domino scheme applies to eligible non-hazardous TIJ cartridges, creating a clearer separation between consumables suitable for the programme and material requiring a different waste treatment process.
Once collected, the cartridges are sent to a Circular Planet partner facility in Belgium. The programme says the cartridges are separated, cleaned, and processed so recovered plastics can be converted into extruded pipe and other plastic products.
Components that cannot be recycled are directed into energy-from-waste treatment. That means the programme contains more than one recovery route, with material recycling preferred where the cartridge components can be processed economically.
The distinction is important for sustainability reporting. Recycling plastic into another manufactured product retains material value in a way that energy recovery does not, even where the residual waste contributes to electricity or heat generation.
Circular Planet operates as a multi-brand programme developed with printer and cartridge manufacturers. Its wider model allows businesses to consolidate genuine OEM print consumables rather than running a separate return process around every equipment brand present at a site.
That can be useful in factories where coding and marking equipment has accumulated over several investment cycles. Different lines may use different printer technologies for primary packaging, cases, labels, and logistics identification, making multiple manufacturer-specific waste streams unnecessarily complex.
The partnership also creates a reverse-logistics element around Domino’s consumables supply. Forward logistics must ensure cartridges are available before production needs them; the recycling programme establishes a movement in the opposite direction once those consumables have reached the end of their useful life.
Reverse flows are generally harder to optimise because spent consumables are generated gradually across many locations and have low individual value. Collection density therefore becomes one of the factors determining whether material can be returned economically.
A wider multi-country and multi-brand network gives the recycling operator more scope to consolidate loads than a bespoke service supporting a small number of individual sites. It can also provide customers with a consistent collection process where the same company operates facilities across several participating markets.
The environmental result will depend on uptake rather than the existence of the programme itself. Customers still have to separate eligible cartridges, provide suitable collection points, educate staff, and request collections consistently enough for material to reach the recycling route.
For industrial supply chains, the scheme is small compared with the tonnage moved on pallets, in containers, or through packaging systems. Its relevance lies in the opposite characteristic: recurring low-volume waste streams are easily ignored precisely because no individual cartridge appears significant. A collection network only works if it makes the correct return route easier than the nearest general-waste bin.
