HP Planet Partners has made is easy for a lazy person like me to recycle by including an envelope in the ink cartridge package with an return address already printed neatly on it.

I have been using more ink than ever this semester with the amount of work I have to do, which means I’m tired, my printer’s exhausted, and empty ink cartridges litter the floor.

Luckily, I also have an abundance of little green envelopes waiting patiently for me to fill them with my empty ink cartridges and drop them in the mail.

In 1997, HP Planet Partners began accepting ink cartridges and other materials for recycling, according to the HP Web site. The site explains that it is important to recycle these items because if you don’t, they are headed to a landfill.

When you return your materials to HP, the item is stripped and sorted into different categories to be reused like ink, plastics, or foam. Whatever is left over is disposed of in an “environmentally responsible manner,” according to the Web site.

The directions are on the package, the package comes with the cartridge, so the whole process is rather painless.

The Web site states that 112 million HP materials that have been returned since the program began, and now I can add a few more to that number.