ETIRA responds to recent HP flyer on cartridges
March 25, 2019
General marketing speak is OK, but you cannot say things that are not true. ETIRA regrets that HP’s new product marketing material is again lowering the bar. Their September 2017 flyer on printer cartridges may be generally correct on clones and counterfeits, but speaks nonsense on remanufactured cartridges: it is a baseless generalization, which gets it wrong on all three counts: quality, safety and environment.
On quality, because since the 1990’s, 3rd party cartridge remanufacturers have held a 20-30% market share in toners and 15-20% in inkjets and is now a 2bn euro industry in Europe. So remanufacturers must be doing something right in terms of quality. And like the OEM’s, remanufacturers comply with the ISO cartridge yield standards.
On safety and quality, because most remanufacturers produce according to DIN, Nordic Ecolabel, STMC, ISO 9003, and other international safety and quality standards.
On environment, because we adhere to ISO 14001, Blue Angel, Nordic Ecolabel and similar standards. Most environment standard are only available to reuse cartridges, because by definition, they are more environment-friendly than new cartridges ! And it is only thanks to 3rd party remanufacturers that 20-30% of cartridges are not being landfilled after 1st use, but get a 2nd and subsequent life, reducing their environmental footprint while offering customer choice. No printer manufacturer matches that environmental performance.
ETIRA thinks the flyer contradicts earlier HP viewpoints. In 2015, HP sued a company in the Netherlands because it sold new non-HP cartridges but labeled them as “totally rebuilt”. But as HP does not offer remanufactured HP cartridges, ETIRA saw this court case as support to the remanufactured cartridge industry. Why else would they spend the time and cost of a court case ?
ETIRA reached out to HP management to stress that the flyer is misleading and constitutes false advertising, and must be reworded.