Schools Earn Easy Cash Collecting Used Printer Cartridges

The humble printer cartridge—a necessary item in an ever-growing number of businesses, homes, and schools—is a bone of contention in an industrial struggle worth billions of dollars to corporations and, potentially, thousands of dollars to individual schools.

Schools are discovering there is money to be made from empty ink and toner cartridges used in computer printers, fax machines, and photocopiers. Scores of companies offer payments for the cartridges, with price lists posted on Web sites such as empties4cash.com and cartridgesforkids.com .

The companies are part of an upstart industry that is challenging the giants of the printer trade—such as Hewlett-Packard, Epson, and Lexmark—and that view schools as...