Fill ’em up

With the acquisition of a six-county franchise territory, a former Dictaphone Corp. executive plans to inject up to 50 ink cartridge recycling stores locally, the first major build-out of a concept that has fast taken hold in other parts of the country.

In June, Bob Attanasio acquired the Fairfield County master franchiser designation for Cartridge World, which replenishes ink and toner levels in printer cartridges and then sells them at a steep discount.

The company was founded in Australia and has its U.S. headquarters in Emeryville, Calif., which to date has assigned more than 1,500 franchises nationally.

While Long Island and northern New Jersey are home to a large number of franchise outlets, the company has made comparatively little headway in Connecticut and the Hudson Valley.

Attanasio plans to change that. The Stamford native and Bethel resident previously held senior positions at Dictaphone, the pioneering speech-recognition software company once based in Stratford.

“We are helping the environment and passing dramatic savings along to consumers and businesses,” Attanasio said. “I have plans to add up to 50 franchises in the acquired territory.”

To do so, he has set a goal of enrolling one new franchisee monthly.

Douglas Garrido, manager in the Norwalk store owned by Greg O”™Neill, notes that Cartridge World is slotted at an odd intersection of franchising, catering to both business and consumer customers, not unlike the UPS Store.

Coincidentally, Cartridge World”™s senior two operations executives previously worked at the UPS Store and its predecessor company Mail Boxes Etc.

Cartridge World has a ways to go to catch the UPS Store, which Entrepreneur magazine ranks among the top franchises of 2007; Milford-based Subway remains No. 1. But it is gaining ground ”“ the magazine ranked Cartridge World among the 13^th fastest-growing franchise in the country.

The rapid growth is being driven by both cost savings as well as an increasing “green” ethic in offices and households. A laser cartridge can take 450 years to decompose, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA counts more than 350 million cartridges tossed into North American landfills annually.

In the early 1990”™s, Fairfield County companies Xerox Corp. and Union Carbide Corp. were among the early companies experimenting with cartridge remanufacturing. Despite more than a decade of recycling, however, more than 80 percent of remanufactured toner cartridges are tossed, according to a July report from InfoTrends of Weymouth, Mass.

The reason? Many people do not realize refill services exist.

Cartridge World is not alone in rushing to the business opportunity. A small cottage industry of recycling franchisers exists, including:

Ӣ Caboodle Cartridge, which has just two locations in the Northeast.

Ӣ InkTone, whose parent company owns the Sir Speedy print shop franchise.

Ӣ Ink Solution.

Ӣ Island Ink-Jet Systems Inc.

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Ӣ Rapid Refill Ink.

Big-box, office-supply companies such as Staples Inc. also sell recycled cartridges, as do multiple dot-coms who also sell do-it-yourself refill kits.

Cartridge World recently criticized Framingham, Mass.-based Staples after the retailer agreed in June to phase out its recycled cartridges compatible with printers from Hewlett-Packard Co. in favor of carrying HP cartridges.

Cartridge World itself drew the ire of HP in 2005, after HP sued alleging Cartridge World used toner with a chemical composition similar to a patented HP product.

Both HP and Cartridge World are waging a marketing war, publicizing the results of market research firms that support their products at the expense of the other.