Born in the United States around 25 years ago, recycled cartridges now represent 32% of all printer consumables used in the US. This type of product has been growing very fast also in other countries around the world. In Great Britain for example, 28% of the cartridges used today are recycled/remanufactured.
Unfortunately, the sales of recycled cartridges hadn’t worked out so well in Italy.

Generally speaking, the remanufactured cartridges market in Italy accounts for approximately 600,000 units per year, which represents around 10% of the total market.

The reasons for the lack of interest in this product in Italy must be seen in the availability and the offer of recycled cartridges.
Most of the companies that operate in this market are small and operate locally. They don’t have market objectives/Targets or technical growth capabilities and they are often industrially and economically disadvantaged. Also, many companies don’t work in a professional way. As a result, many companies in this sector produce cartridges of poor quality.
On the other hand, many “public customers” (institutions, companies, public administrations) don’t have enough environmental awareness. Their purchases are not as green as they should be.

With 200.000 cartridges sold in 2007, Sapi is a company leader in the Italian and in the European market.
The company covers three important functions:
Environmental: Removing waste from the environment
Work Place: Creating work opportunities for the Italian region in which it is located, while other companies are delocalizating their manufacturing
Market Place: Offering an alternative product to customers.

For many years, SAPI has seen an acknowledgement of its activities by a continuous growth of sales