August Abolins wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 AA> Hi Roy (of 1:270/615),
 AA> On , in a message to Michael Hall
 AA> you wrote: 

 MH>> I just found out that the local Wal-mart is distributing free
 MH>> mailers to return ink jet cartridge for recycling. They come
 MH>> postage paid, but no incentive...

 RJT> Let's turn that around for a minute -- what's _their_ incentive to
 RJT> do such a thing?  Why is it that one maker (Lexmark?) put a chip in
 RJT> theirs and then went agressively legal on the "copyright" of it to
 RJT> keep aftermarket cartridge makers from making one that'd work in
 RJT> their printers.

 RJT> Are the economics of printer making really that scrwed up that they
 RJT> *NEED* to sell those cartridges in order to stay in business?  Or is
 RJT> there something else that I'm overlooking?

 AA> Ahh... but I think you're assuming that the recycleables are going
 AA> back to Lexmark?

I really have no idea,  but why would they make it an issue for people not
being able to support their stuff?  That just doesn't make a whole lot of
sense to me.

 AA> However, the "chips" and the lawsuit only seems to pertain to the 
 AA> higher-end cartridges -  for the laser models for example; I think 
 AA> the Lexmark site reveals that the refilling is not disallowed for 
 AA> the vast majority of the low-end (ink jet) models.

I wasn't aware of that.

 AA> I think we need to ask to whom is Wal-mart sending the ink jet 
 AA> cartridges for recycling?  If it's a plastics company, then it's
 AA> obviously just a waste issue.  If it's to a Wall-Mart associate,
 AA> then maybe they want to cash in on the $1/cartridge rewards.  I
 AA> doubt that the returns are going back to Lexmark.

Good question.

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