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(NC)—Earth Day has become an annual reminder of our collective need to be better environmental stewards and become more attentive to our environmentally harmful actions. As a direct result of this annual event, enormous quantities of empty ink cartridges were diverted from landfill this year. On Earth Day 2009, office supplies retailer, Staples Canada, set a goal to collect and safely recycle 2 million of these toxic items, with a deadline of Earth Day 2010.

“It was an increase of 700,000 cartridges from the previous year,” says company president, Steve Matyas. “We raised the stakes, Canadians everywhere rose to the challenge, and we did indeed achieve this unprecedented goal.”

 There's no doubt that this recycling program is a significant contribution to the air we breathe, the water we drink, to pasturelands where animals graze, and to the soil where our food is grown. By diverting millions of ink cartridges—plus other toxic items like rechargeable batteries and cell phones— such initiatives vastly curtail the contamination caused by uncontrolled amounts of aluminium, plastic and oil.

 Recycling is an ongoing program at Staples stores, where last year, in addition to ink cartridges, the retailer reports the collection of at least 2,100 tonnes of electronic waste and 3,450 tonnes of cardboard, all of it successfully diverted from Canadian landfill.

Several additional company initiatives are also underway including the summertime “Lights Out” program at 150 stores to reduce energy consumption—and the expansion of a recycle program in Ontario aimed at making it easier for the public to dispose of heavier electronic equipment such as computers, laptops, printers, telephones, cameras, answering machines and more.  Staples currently operates this program in two other provinces – Alberta and Quebec.

 “September 1, 2010 is our target date to remove polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from all packaging materials of the products we sell,” Matyas continued. “We have also set a goal to eliminate PVC from all our products and we are working with our suppliers to do this as quickly as possible.”