Threat to the planet

I realize as an American with the typical lifestyle here, I am polluting the earth and being incredibly wasteful. I try to do little things like recycle, use my canvas shopping bags, and turn stuff off when I am not using them. I know that is very little in the grand scheme of things. I wonder what the large scale environmental impact of the printer cartridge is? I always send them in the envelopes the manufacturer provides, but they are so small! They should do that for bottled water as far as I am concerned. That uses a great deal more plastic! (I have considered that they can not process them in normal town plants, but it is funny the great effort to recycle them like they are causing the landfills to overflow!)