Originally Posted by cyrnel

Once they're old & dried they can be more difficult to make useful again. Not impossible, but it can be messy. Look for a refilling company in your area. They should have the painful parts of the process down to a science and can make use of the older cartridges. Won't be as cheap as doing it yourself but it'll be better than new. Some will just take the old as credit toward "new" refilled.

I haven't seen an office supply store pay money for cartridges. It's really just a way to protect their back-end from used cartridges getting to the refill companies. Huge margins on cartridges.

If you can, try a cheap laser. The economics are far better. They can be had for ~$100 initial cost, then when the starter cartridge runs dry (maybe 1K pages) add ~$8 for refill toner good for 6K pages.