The initiative will help provide education and job training in Haiti.
All those printer cartridges from HP that usually cost an arm and leg will start helping to do some good in the world beyond your prints of kitten photos. During an event at its headquarters, HP announced that it is using recycled plastic from Haiti to manufacture select cartridges.
The initiative will help create jobs in Haiti and provide educational opportunities and scholarships for children. More importantly, its goal is to get the kids who are collecting recycled bottles out of landfills and into schools. Plus, it helps support their parents and other adults with safety and job training. The partnership will also help provide medical care.
HP is teaming up with Thread, a company that already uses recycled bottles from Haiti and Honduras to create clothes. The fabric it produces is used by Timberland and Kenneth Cole. In addition to cleaning up the world and helping create a job market, Thread is trying to reduce child labor by creating an environment that employs older family members. Part of that includes starting a coalition that HP is part of.
The First Mile coalition which includes HP, Thread, Timberland, Team Tassy and ACOP helps get kids in school in addition to offering employment opportunities for adults and medical care. Of course, it also reduces the amount of plastic bottles that end up in landfills and in our oceans. So maybe paying those high ink prices is worth it.
