The printer the store won't recycle is the heavy one

Best Buy and Staples both recycle consumer printers at no charge. Walk it to the customer service desk on your next errand: no appointment, no receipt, no proof you bought it there. Inkjets, small lasers and all-in-ones are exactly what the program is for. Both stores cap what one household can bring in a day; Best Buy's desk takes up to 3 items per household per day. Policies are set per store and change without notice, so call ahead before you load the car. Verified August 2026.

If your city runs e-waste collection days, those take a printer in any condition a few times a year, and your city's solid-waste page lists the next date.

For a printer one hand can lift, any of these beats paying us $79. Take the free trip.

Those counters are built for the printer a customer can carry in. An office-class machine is a different object. The floor-standing unit from a closed home office, the copier-size all-in-one that took two people to deliver, the laser that has lived under the folding table since the move: stores commonly refuse these at the desk, and the decision is made store by store, on the day, after you have already hauled it there.

Getting it there is its own problem. Office lasers run forty pounds and up with no honest grip points, and one tipped on its side can sift toner into your trunk carpet. If the monitor and the old tower are going too, the per-day cap turns one errand into two.

So the free program fits the printer you could have carried anyway. The machine that actually needs the help is the one that gets refused, and even a store that says yes is still a store you have to get it to.

Cartridges never need a pickup. Every office-supply store takes ink and toner at the counter, no purchase required, and it is the one part of this that is genuinely effortless. If a store trip is happening anyway, bring the drawer of dried-up cartridges along with the printer. If you are booking a curbside pickup instead, leave them in the machine; they ride out with it.

A desk inkjet holds nothing worth worrying about past the last print job. Office machines are different: many lasers and copier-class all-in-ones keep scans, fax logs and address books on internal storage. Before one leaves the building, run the factory reset from the settings menu; the manual calls it something like restore defaults or memory clear. Five minutes, and it is the same step whether the machine is headed to a recycler, a buyer or a curb.

Book first, then put the printer out. The price locks when you book, so the machine can sit inside until the morning of. Haulers head out between 8 and 10; almost half of pickups are done by noon, and about three quarters by 2 PM. You get a text with the ETA before yours arrives, and photos once it is gone.

Nobody comes inside, and you do not need to be home. Anywhere a hauler can reach from outside works: a porch, a driveway, beside the garage door. Tyler Bond's couch was gone 45 minutes after he booked; a printer is a lighter lift than that. Book by 2 PM local time and it goes today, seven days a week, in all 50 states.