Inkjet printers are rubbish, and I defy anyone to say different. In the past three years I have bought and discarded eight different inkjet printers, and they all had two things in common. Firstly, they were expensive to run, and secondly, they stopped working within eighteen months of purchase. The first time it happened, I rang technical support. After negotiating the minefield of "press three", "press five", "press six", and "An operator will be with you in a moment", I eventually spoke to a helpful young man. After an hour of trying to fix the problem online he said: "It's a mystery isn't it, why don't you parcel it up and post it off to me?" I didn't of course, it wasn't worth the carriage costs, or my time. All I wanted was a machine that worked. So I did what everyone else does, I threw it away, and went out and bought a new machine.

Think back fifteen years to the era of the dot matrix printer. Those chunky beasts would run all day long with never a hiccup, all night too if we asked them. Some of those musclely machines would run all year on one 4.95 ribbon, just so long as we carried out a little bit of ribbon refurbishment. Those machines gave the impression they would run until the end of time, providing they received a little TLC every aeon or two.

Then one day, almost overnight, the era of the dot matrix was over. Along came the so called intelligent printer. Intelligent my backside! We were seduced by their almost silence, and promises of sexy colour pictures. The time of the dominatrix was over and they were consigned to the chasm of doom, a slight Freudian slip perhaps, but you get the picture.

A couple of weeks ago I was so fed up with the sight of dead inkjet printers cluttering up my office and home, I loaded them all into the car and headed off for the local rubbish dump. On the way there I had to pass that giant computer retailer, you know the one, they are always located on the edge of town, and advertise almost daily on television. Their ads usually feature grinning customers and smug staff. I was tempted to dump the dead printers on their forecourt, together with a card saying: "Why don't you sell kit that works?" But I didn't have a suitable pen, nor a piece of card, so I pressed on past their garish plastic signs, to the public dump.

At the tip these days everything is sorted for reclamation purposes. I asked the operative where computer equipment should be left. "Round the other side of the skip mate," he replied smiling, and I grabbed my first armful of dead printers, and set off in that direction. What did I find? Three chunky monitors, the kind of thing that no one wants any more, and two smart looking tower systems, the kind of gals you'd be happy to take home to your mother.

To the right of that, was a heap of inkjet printers. The pile was taller than me, and looked as if a tipper wagon had just arrived and dumped them in a huge mound. And they weren't all ancient jobs either, for sprinkled amongst them were many modern pieces of kit that looked as if that same grinning retailer had sold them within the last few weeks. So you see, inkjet printers really are rubbish, literally so. If you don't believe me, pay a visit to your local rubbish dump, and I'll wager you don't have to search long to find them.

So why do we put up with this? We wouldn't buy a car, and throw it away after a few months because it doesn't work. Nor a compact disc player, or a camcorder, a cooker, a coffee making machine, a camera, or even a kettle. The answer of course is cost. We have come to see them as disposable, throwaway items, like an empty can of shaving cream, or a spent ballpoint pen, and sometimes they last about as long. Surely that can't be right? So why don't we take them back? Probably because we are so concerned that that smart Alec salesman in the grinning retailers will make out we don't know what we are doing. He'll probably say: "I could sort that out in five minutes flat, if only I had the time. You'll have to leave it with me and come back in a week or two". We just couldn't be bothered, we only want a piece of kit that works. It's what we have paid for after all.

Yesterday I visited a friend of mine who runs an inkjet refill store. He was telling me he is having continual trouble with big corporations threatening him with legal action for refilling their cartridges. More power to his elbow I say, anything that halves our huge printing costs must be worth supporting. Whilst I was there, an old guy came in. He had recently bought an expensive computer system from that famous retailer who only sells by mail order, you know the one I mean. Part of the system was an expensive colour printer and the cartridges had quickly expired. My friend advised him that new replacement cartridges, colour and black and white, would cost him 65 notes. Alternatively, he'd refill the same cartridges for 39.00. The old guy almost had a coronary on the spot. I think he was expecting to pay about a tenner. "I am not paying that!" he snapped, "I'll throw the printer away first", and I couldn't help smiling and imagining that brand new printer perched on the summit of that heap.