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I gave two printers to staples today for recycling. Then I thought their must be a reason why they're willing to take them for free. Where those printers scrap metal yard worthy?

They are probably just recycling to be part of the green fad and also to draw customers (if you're "environment-friendly" and want to recycle your old printer, it gets you in the door for them to sell you a new one). There is nothing valuable in modern printers, just a small handful of wires but they are not thick wires so really a matter of cents. You can always clip the power cord and/or adapter to anything you are throwing out if you don't have time/space to break down the other components - cords are counted as "insulated copper" and fetch about a $1 a pound and adapters are counted as electric motors at some places.

AGgressive Metal wrote:They are probably just recycling to be part of the green fad and also to draw customers (if you're "environment-friendly" and want to recycle your old printer, it gets you in the door for them to sell you a new one). There is nothing valuable in modern printers, just a small handful of wires but they are not thick wires so really a matter of cents. You can always clip the power cord and/or adapter to anything you are throwing out if you don't have time/space to break down the other components - cords are counted as "insulated copper" and fetch about a $1 a pound and adapters are counted as electric motors at some places.

Good. Those things were just taking up space.

I made this short video to show what a typical home printer is worth in scrap terms. The quick answer is, less than a dollar!

I just cut the cord and toss the rest with the steel

In general, printers are not worth a lot for parts or scrap, but they're easy to get and the weight adds up quickly.

For inkjet printers: 99% of these are not worth fixing or parting out. Pull the cartridges and the AC Adapter/power cord and scrap the rest.

For laser printers: Some of these are worth parting out or repairing. Pull the toner cartridges and fusers, and check for memory modules.

The circuit boards on most small printers are not worth extracting, as most have a lower value than desktop computer boards and are more difficult to remove.

My usual strategy for ink and toner cartridges is to sell the desirable brand name ones to recycling companies and trade the generic and refilled ones to Staples for $2 store credit each.

I used to do well selling AC adapters on eBay and Amazon, as they're easy to test.

Some scrap yards will take intact printers as light iron/shred scrap. Many, if not most will take larger copy machines and office printers the same way.

Good info Dr Cadmium!

Dr. Cad, you are just a bundle of knowledge re: scrap.

thank you for the info!