I work with a couple of Form 2s in a model shop, among other things. We produce quite a few empty cartridges and fogged tanks, and cannot determine a good way to dispose of these safely. Can Formlabs offer a service to return these cartridges, similar to how inkjet cartridges are recycled? Save up a few and ship them back.
The world could use a little less waste. 
https://h30248.www3.hp.com/recycle/supplies/index-hpe.asp?__cc=us&__la=en
This is along the lines of what would truly make the formlabs suite of products all encompassing.
I would like an answer on this as well. It’s time for us to replace some of our tanks and cartridges for the first time and I searched the forum but only found answers regarding proper disposal of the used alcohol. Do people just bag and throw out their old Cartridges and Tanks? At least the tank you can put into sunlight and cure the resin, but the cartridges don’t allow light in.
I don’t know about the cartridges but zvat will buy your old tanks. They also offer services to replace the plastic with optical glass and re-coat with the PDMS layer.
I have used their service several times with good results.
I like the concept. The rubber would probably need to be replaced when sent back in but it seems like an easy replacement. You have to clean it out well to ensure there is no contamination. Unlike an ink cartridge, a user can easily accidentally or purposefully contaminate the cartridge/resin.
I would even appreciate FL selling resin in bulk containers (gallon of resin, like boxed wine) so you can refill a slightly more robust cartridge yourself. Throwing away a plastic bag for every 1 gallon of resin and recycling the outer cardboard is much better than throwing away these cartridges every liter. You could also cure the resin residue inside a clear plastic bag.
FL will be launching their “Long Term” resin tank soon so I am sure they are working on reducing cartridge waste also.
That’s a great idea even for the current cartridges. Just program in a way that can allow the printer to be told/sense that it’s been filled.
Excited to try the new long term tanks, too.
Thanks for the suggestion. Reducing waste and maintaining environmental responsibility is a top priority for us and we’re actively considering methods of implementing a recycling program internally. Resin does complicate things, but there are a few great ideas in this thread and I’ll pass them along.
It would be nice if one could reset the chip in the cartridge so the printer thinks it’s a new one and just use simple bottle refills of resin.
That might present a few challenges. The bite valve on the cartridges wears down over time which is one of the primary reasons we can’t advise that customers refill cartridges. When using different materials, mixing may become an issue and we’d also have to create a mechanism for recycling the re-fill bottles which would present similar challenges as compared to recycling cartridges. In any case, we’re continuing to explore the best methods of implementing a recycling program.
Thanks for the reply Frew.
It was just a thought I had. I wouldn’t mix different resins together; but you can someone somewhere would.
Hey Frew, what about selling bite valve’s in bulk as as well resin?
I would also love to buy bulk resin and a baggie full of bite valves would solve that maybe? They are very easy to swap onto a new tank.
Just a thought for a future project. Loving the printer but the waste is painful to see…
This is something we’re looking into as well. I can’t say I’ve swapped any of the bite valves out myself but we’d want to verify that this didn’t increase the risk of failure for users.
Now that FormLabs has a long lasting Resin Tank they really need to find a solution to refill the Cartridges. Really seams like a waste to me how I have empty Cartridges piling up in my office. A refill solution is really needed without going to a non FormLabs source.