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Photocopier Disposal Brisbane: We Pay You, and We Take It Away Free
ABC Copier Solutions buys commercial photocopiers, multifunction devices, production presses and wide-format plan printers from businesses, schools and hospitals across Brisbane and the rest of Queensland. We pay you for the machine rather than charging you to take it. Pickup is free, the price is agreed in writing first, and you are paid on collection.
- Free pickup anywhere in Brisbane and across Queensland
- Firm price in writing before the truck is booked
- Paid on collection, not thirty days later
- No skip, no levy, no disposal fee: we pay you instead
What we buy
What we take in Brisbane, and what we don’t
We buy floor-standing commercial copiers and multifunction devices: the machines that sit on the floor or a cabinet, run on toner, and have paper drawers, a document feeder and usually a finisher. Canon imageRUNNER, Kyocera, Konica Minolta, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, Xerox and Fuji Xerox, Develop. We also buy production presses, wide-format plan printers and plotters.
Two things decide whether we can buy it, and we would rather tell you now than waste an afternoon of your time.
- Ten years old or newer, any quantity. One machine is enough. There is no minimum.
- Or ten or more machines at once, any age. A fleet coming out of an office clear-out, a relocation, a school refresh or an end-of-lease return is worth collecting even when the individual machines are well past their best.
If your machine is older than ten years and it is the only one, it is usually past the point where we can pay you for it, and we would rather say so than string you along. Send it through anyway if you are not certain: the date on the sticker is not always the age of the machine, and we will come back to you either way.
What we cannot use at all is the A4 printer, the home printer and the desktop all-in-one: the machines that sit on a desk or a shelf rather than stand on the floor, whether they run on ink or toner. Brother MFC and DCP, Epson EcoTank and WorkForce, HP OfficeJet, DeskJet and Envy, Canon PIXMA. That includes desktop inkjets that print A3: printing A3 does not make a desk or home printer a commercial copier. The question is whether it stands on the floor and takes toner. If it sits on a desk and takes ink, your council transfer station or Officeworks will take it.
Brisbane’s machines sit with a different mix of owners from the southern capitals. Professional, scientific and technical services make up 15.05% of all Brisbane businesses, and health care another 9.22%, one of the two most health-weighted metros in the country. Those are the tenants of the Golden Triangle on Eagle, Creek, Queen and Alice Streets, Waterfront Brisbane and North Quarter, the fringe offices at Milton, Fortitude Valley, Newstead and Spring Hill, and the suburban centres at Toowong, Indooroopilly, Chermside, Upper Mount Gravatt, Springwood and North Lakes. Add the Queensland Government along George and William Streets, the hospital precincts at Herston, Woolloongabba, South Brisbane, Chermside and Coopers Plains, and the business parks at Eight Mile Plains and across the TradeCoast.
And then there are the schools. Greater Brisbane has 765 school campuses, and 137 of them have more than 1,000 students. That is one Brisbane school in five, against 13% in Sydney, because Queensland’s big state high schools genuinely are bigger. A school that size runs a fleet, replaces it on a cycle, and is exactly the ten-or-more job we are built for.
The cost in Queensland
Landfill is legal in Queensland. That is exactly why skipping your copier costs you twice
Start with the honest part. Queensland has no statewide ban on e-waste going to landfill. Victoria and South Australia both have one; Queensland does not. A photocopier can legally go into a general waste skip in Brisbane, and any page that tells you otherwise is wrong. We would rather you heard that from someone with something to sell you than found it out later.
What Queensland has instead is a levy, and it only goes one way. The Queensland Government waste disposal levy in the metropolitan zone, which covers Brisbane and most of South East Queensland, is $135 per tonne for 2026-27, up from $125. The published schedule takes it to $145 next July, $155 the year after and $165 by 2029-30: ten dollars a tonne, every year. The levy is charged on what goes into landfill. Anything recycled carries none.
So the skip is legal, and it costs you twice. You pay for the skip or the strip-out crew, and you pay the levy, passed through in the tip fee. On a single 200kg machine the levy alone is about $27 at this year’s rate. On a twenty-machine office clear-out it is around $540, before anyone has hired a skip. And on top of both, if the machine is under ten years old or one of ten or more, you have paid to throw away something we would have paid you for. That is the real cost of skipping it, and it is the part nobody puts on the invoice.
There is a quieter consequence too. With no ban, nothing forces a record of where your machine went. If you hold a Queensland Government or council contract, sit inside a larger organisation’s ESG reporting, or answer to an ISO or client audit, the only record of what happened to the machine, and to the drive inside it, is the one you ask for.
That part we make easy. Every machine we buy is exported, stripped, and the parts recycled. None of it is recycled onshore, and none of it is sold whole to another business in Australia. Nothing we collect goes to landfill, so none of it attracts the levy. If you need the collection recorded for a procurement file, an audit or an environmental report, tell us at quote stage and we will put it in writing.
Your options, honestly
Trade-in, scrap, or sell it? What each option actually pays
In Queensland the tip is legal, which makes it the option most people reach for first. It is also the only one here that charges you twice and pays you nothing. There are six or seven ways to make a 200kg machine go away, and no obvious sense of which one leaves you best off. Here they are, including the ones that are not us.
- The leasing company takes it back at end of lease. You get nothing. Depending on the contract you may still be liable for condition, missing accessories or a make-good charge.
- The new supplier removes the old machine as part of the deal. That is free removal priced into the new contract. You are paying for it, just not on a separate invoice.
- A junk removal or office strip-out crew. Charged by volume, and in Queensland the machine usually goes straight to landfill with everything else, with the levy built into the price. Fast, legal, and it costs you money rather than making you any.
- A commercial e-waste recycler. You pay a fee and the machine is dismantled for its metal. No levy, because nothing is landfilled, but it still costs you.
- A scrap metal merchant. You might see $30 to $60 of metal, and you have to get 200kg of machine to a metal yard yourself. The quick routes across Brisbane are tolled, from Clem7 and Legacy Way to the Gateway and Logan Motorways, and the free ones run through the CBD.
- It stays in the storeroom for three years. The honest default, and on Eagle Street or in Milton that storeroom is not cheap floor space. Most machines we collect have been sitting somewhere for a while.
- Sell it to us. You get paid, pickup is free, and the machine does not come back into the Australian market to compete with the one you just bought.
| Route | Takes a 200kg MFD? | What it costs you | What you get back | Paperwork |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leasing company takeback | Yes, at end of term | Possible make-good charge | Nothing | Lease closure only |
| New supplier trade-in | Yes | Priced into the new contract | Nothing separately | None |
| Junk removal / skip | Yes, usually to landfill | By volume, plus the levy in the tip fee | Nothing | Usually none |
| Commercial e-waste recycler | Yes | Per-unit or per-tonne fee | Nothing | Often a recycling receipt |
| Scrap metal merchant | You deliver it | Your own transport and tolls | Roughly $30–$60 of metal | Weighbridge docket |
| Leave it in the storeroom | Not applicable | Office floor space | Nothing | Still on your asset register |
| ABC Copier Solutions | Yes, we bring the crew | Nothing. Pickup is free | We pay you, on collection | Written quote, collection and drive handling confirmed in writing on request |
Valuation
What your photocopier is worth, and how we work it out
“How much is my old photocopier worth?” is the question we get most, and nobody else in this category answers it in public. There is no price list, because two identical machines can be worth very different money, and a press coming out of a Northgate print shop is a different conversation again. Here is how we work it out, in the order it matters.
- Meter reading. The single biggest factor. We need the mono count and the colour count, which the machine will print for you from the counter menu. A C3070 at 400,000 clicks and the same machine at 4 million are not the same asset.
- Age and model. This is the factor that decides whether we can buy at all, not just what we pay. Current and previous generation machines hold real value. Once a machine is past ten years it is generally worth its parts and its metal rather than its function, which is why a single older unit usually is not one for us, but ten or more of them together still are.
- Consumable and component life. Fuser, drums, developer, transfer belt. A machine needing a full set costs the next owner thousands before it prints a page.
- Whether it powers on. It does not have to. It just changes the number. Tell us honestly and the quote will hold.
- Accessories and finishing. Booklet makers, saddle stitchers, large capacity trays, punch units, folders and spare toner all add value, sometimes more than the engine itself.
- Service history. A machine that has been on a maintenance contract is worth more than one that has not, and the service log tells us a lot in thirty seconds.
- Access. In Brisbane the hard sites are not always the tall ones. A business park at Eagle Farm or Eight Mile Plains with an at-grade dock is the easiest collection in the city. A Golden Triangle tower with a booked goods lift is a known quantity. A converted house in Paddington or Spring Hill with front steps and a steep street outside can take more planning than either, and the quote reflects it. We confirm access before we quote, never after.
What to send us for a same-day figure: the make and model, the meter reading, the rough age, whether it powers on, which floor it is on and whether there are steps or a lift, and a photo of the machine and the control panel. That is enough for a real number rather than a range.
The price we give you is the price you get. It is agreed in writing before the truck is booked and it is not revised on the day.
Got a machine sitting in a Brisbane storeroom? Send us the make, model and meter reading and we will give you a figure today.
Call 0438 137 938Collection
How collection works, and where we come to in Queensland
Tell us what you have
Call Jaxon on 0438 137 938 or send the form. Make, model, meter reading, rough age, which floor it is on, and a photo if you have one.
Get a price in writing
A firm figure, same business day. Not a range, not an estimate revised on the day.
We book the collection
We arrange the truck, the trolleys, the tailgate lift and a two-person crew if the machine needs one. Dock access, lift bookings and loading zone timing confirmed before the day, not on it.
You get paid
Paid on collection. We decommission and load the machine; you do not have to do anything.
Brisbane is an easier city to collect from than Sydney or Melbourne once you are inside it. Getting in is the catch. The CBD sits on a tight river peninsula, reached across a handful of bridges, the Victoria, William Jolly, Captain Cook and Story Bridges among them, and a largely one-way grid. There are fewer ways in than in either southern capital, though the streets are wider once you arrive.
Then there is the clock. Under Brisbane City Council’s rules, a commercial vehicle can stop for up to 30 minutes in a loading zone, and up to 20 minutes in a commercial vehicle or shared loading zone. Decommissioning a floor-standing machine on level twenty, bringing it down a booked goods lift and getting it onto a tailgate is a job that has to be timed to those minutes, or have a bay arranged in advance. And the fast cross-city routes are tolled, Clem7, Legacy Way, AirportlinkM7, the Go Between Bridge, the Gateway and Logan Motorways, while the free alternatives run straight through the CBD.
The one people do not expect is the hills. Spring Hill, Paddington, Red Hill, Highgate Hill, Toowong and Bardon are genuinely steep, and plenty of the small offices there are in converted houses with steps at the front door. Lowering 200kg onto a tailgate lift parked on a slope is a different job from backing up to a dock, and we plan it as one.
Brisbane’s businesses are also more spread out than any other capital’s. Logan, Beaudesert and Ipswich together hold 19.7% of Greater Brisbane’s businesses with 20 or more staff, more than Brisbane’s own southern suburbs. That means longer drives and, usually, easier docks: Eagle Farm, Murarrie, Northgate, Rocklea, Acacia Ridge, Eight Mile Plains and Springwood are all at-grade, with a dock or a roller door a tailgate truck can back up to.
We would rather know all of that before the day than find it out on it. It goes into the quote, which is why we ask which floor the machine is on, whether there are steps, and what the street outside looks like before we give you a number.
We collect right across the metro: the CBD and the Golden Triangle; Fortitude Valley, Newstead, Bowen Hills and Herston; Spring Hill, Milton, Toowong and Indooroopilly; South Brisbane, West End and Woolloongabba; the TradeCoast at Eagle Farm, Pinkenba, Murarrie, Hemmant and Cannon Hill; the northside through Northgate, Virginia, Geebung, Banyo, Chermside and North Lakes; the southside through Rocklea, Salisbury, Coopers Plains, Acacia Ridge, Archerfield, Upper Mount Gravatt, Eight Mile Plains and Springwood; the west through Darra, Wacol, Richlands and Carole Park; Logan and the Yatala Enterprise Area; Ipswich; and Moreton Bay through Brendale, Strathpine and Narangba. Beyond the metro we cover the whole state: the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and Mount Isa.
Now the honest part about timing, because in this category the real fear is a no-show. We do not send a truck across the country to collect one machine. Brisbane collections are done by local crews based here in Queensland, coordinated from our Perth head office. That is the whole reason the paragraphs above read the way they do: the people loading your machine already know which bridge to take, how long the loading zone gives them and which Paddington streets a truck should not try to stop on. We agree a collection window with you when we quote, and we hold to it. Queensland is a big state, and a collection in Cairns or Mount Isa is planned differently from one in Milton, so for regional jobs we set the window at quote too. If you have a fitout deadline, an end-of-lease date or a school holiday window, say so and we will work to it.
Where we collect in Queensland
Not on the list? We still come. Our crews cover all of Brisbane and the rest of Queensland.
The big machines
Production presses and wide-format machines in Brisbane
We buy production kit as well as office machines. Konica Minolta AccurioPress and bizhub PRO and PRESS, Xerox and Fuji Xerox Versant, Iridesse and PrimeLink, Ricoh Pro. If it ran a print room rather than a corridor, we are interested. We also buy the wide-format plan printers and plotters that come out of architecture, engineering and construction offices.
Queensland print looks different from Melbourne’s. There are 798 printing businesses in the state, and only 31 of them have 20 or more staff. Most Queensland presses sit in small and mid-size shops, trade and digital printers, and the franchises that cycle A3 and light production kit on a lease schedule: Kwik Kopy, Minuteman Press, Snap and the independents. That changes the job. A Brisbane press is more often a single machine in a busy shop than a line of them in a plant, and the question is usually how to get it out without stopping the shop for a day.
They sit where Brisbane print has always sat. Northgate, Virginia, Geebung and Banyo on the northside. Eagle Farm and Pinkenba. Murarrie, Hemmant and Cannon Hill in the east. Rocklea, Salisbury and Coopers Plains on the southside, and Acacia Ridge, Archerfield and Darra beyond them. Woolloongabba and West End for the smaller inner-city digital and trade print, and Brendale and Strathpine in the outer north. If you are in one of those suburbs and a press is coming out, our crews already know the street.
A press is not valued like an office machine. The click count still matters, but the engine hours, the finishing line and the state of the fusing and imaging units matter more. In a Brisbane shop running a single press, the finishing kit standing beside it is often worth as much as the engine: a booklet maker, a stacker or a spare feeder can multiply the number. Send us the whole configuration, not just the model name on the front panel.
Getting it out is the other difference. A press is not a trolley job, and in a working shop it has to come out without stopping production for any longer than it must. We arrange the rigging, the de-install and the transport, check floor loading, lift capacity and dock access before we quote, and work to your print schedule rather than ours. If the press is on a service contract, we work alongside the dealer’s technician rather than around them.
Queensland print is consolidating like everywhere else. 94 Queensland printing businesses ceased trading in the 2024-25 financial year, roughly one in nine. When a shop closes, merges or moves to a smaller site, the presses that do not make the trip still have to go somewhere, and the choice is usually between a clearance auction that takes a commission and a buyer who pays you directly and handles the de-install. We are the second one. If you are closing, consolidating or handing back a lease, call us before the auctioneer.
Data security
Hard drives, data, and what happens to your documents
Because landfill is legal in Queensland, nothing forces anyone to ask where a copier went, and almost nobody asks what happened to the drive inside it. That is the half of disposal most Brisbane businesses have not thought about yet.
Think about who owns these machines here. 1 William Street is the Queensland Government’s main CBD tower, and the George, William and Alice Street quadrant around it holds most of the state’s offices along with the Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, the Magistrates Court on George Street and the Commonwealth Law Courts on North Quay. Health care is 9.22% of every business in Brisbane, and the city’s hospital precincts run from Herston and the RBWH to the PA at Woolloongabba and the Queensland Children’s and Mater at South Brisbane. And one Brisbane school in five has more than a thousand students on its files. Those are organisations for whom a scanned file left on a copier hard drive is a breach, not an oversight.
With no ban in Queensland, the only record of where your machine and its data went is the one you create. It costs nothing extra to make that record say what happened to the drive. Ask for it at the same time as the price.
What happens to the data on the hard drive?
Every commercial photocopier made in the last fifteen years has a hard drive, and that drive holds images of what the machine has scanned, copied, emailed and faxed. Contracts, court documents, patient records, payroll, student files.
Tell us when you enquire and we will agree how the drive is handled before the truck is booked. We can remove it and leave it with you, wipe it, or destroy it, and we can provide written confirmation of what was done. If your organisation has an IT asset disposal policy, send it to us and we will work to it.
Questions
Photocopier disposal in Brisbane: common questions
Can you put a photocopier in a skip in Queensland?
Legally, yes. Queensland has no statewide ban on e-waste going to landfill, unlike Victoria and South Australia. But it costs you twice: you pay for the skip, and you pay the Queensland waste levy, which is $135 a tonne in the metropolitan zone for 2026-27 and rises $10 a tonne every year. If the machine is ten years old or newer, or one of ten or more, you are also throwing away something we would pay you for.
Who buys used photocopiers in Brisbane?
We do. ABC Copier Solutions buys floor-standing commercial copiers, production presses and wide-format machines from businesses across Brisbane and the rest of Queensland, pays on collection and collects free of charge.
How much does photocopier disposal cost in Brisbane?
With us it costs nothing, because we are buying the machine rather than disposing of it. Pickup is free and you are paid on the day. Councils, recyclers and junk removal crews generally charge, either per unit or by volume, and anything that goes to landfill carries the Queensland waste levy on top, passed through in the tip fee.
How much is my old photocopier worth?
It depends on the meter reading first, then the age and model, the life left in the fuser, drums and other consumables, whether it powers on, the accessories and finishing, the service history, and how easy it is to get out of the building. Send us the make, model, meter reading and a photo and we will give you a firm figure the same business day. A single machine past ten years is generally worth its parts and metal rather than its function, but ten or more at once we will buy at any age.
Can you collect from a Brisbane CBD tower?
Yes, and we plan for it rather than turning up and hoping. Brisbane City Council gives commercial vehicles up to 30 minutes in a loading zone and up to 20 minutes in a commercial vehicle or shared loading zone, so the goods lift, the dock and the crew have to be timed to it. Tell us the building and the floor when you enquire and we will confirm dock access and lift booking before we quote.
Will you buy my photocopier if it is more than ten years old?
On its own, usually not. A single machine past ten years is generally worth its metal rather than its function, and we would rather tell you that than take your details and go quiet. The exception is quantity: ten or more machines at once, we will buy at any age. So an old fleet coming out of an office clear-out, a relocation or a school refresh is absolutely worth a call, even though one of the same machines would not be. If you are unsure of the age, send the make, model and a photo and we will tell you either way.
Do you take whole office clear-outs and end-of-lease returns?
Yes, and they are the jobs we most want. Ten or more machines at once qualifies regardless of age, so a floor being stripped, a site consolidating or a lease handing back is a single call rather than a machine-by-machine assessment. Tell us the site, the rough count and your deadline and we will work to it.
Our school is replacing its copier fleet. Will you take the old machines?
Yes. A fleet of ten or more qualifies at any age, so the whole lot goes in one collection rather than being assessed machine by machine. We work to Queensland school holidays so nothing leaves during term, we agree how the hard drives are handled before the truck is booked, and we can put the collection in writing for your business manager and your sustainability reporting.
My leasing company said they would take it back. Should I let them?
Check the contract first. End-of-lease takeback usually returns you nothing and can still leave you liable for condition or missing accessories. If the machine is owned outright rather than leased, selling it is almost always the better outcome.
Do you buy production printers and presses in Queensland?
Yes. AccurioPress, bizhub PRO and PRESS, Versant, Iridesse, PrimeLink and Ricoh Pro among others, from print shops, franchises and in-house print rooms across the state. Send us the full configuration including the finishing line, because it changes the number significantly.
How long does collection take in Brisbane?
You get a firm price the same business day. Collection is handled by our local Queensland crews rather than a truck sent from interstate, so we agree a window with you when we quote rather than telling you after. If you have a fitout deadline, an end-of-lease date or a school holiday window, tell us and we will work to it.
Do you collect from regional Queensland?
Yes, the whole state. The Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and Mount Isa. Our crews cover regional Queensland as well as the metro, and there is no extra charge for regional pickup.
What happens to the hard drive?
Tell us when you enquire and we will agree how the drive is handled before the truck is booked. We can remove it and leave it with you, wipe it, or destroy it, and we can provide written confirmation of what was done. If your organisation has an IT asset disposal policy, send it to us and we will work to it.
Ready to have it gone? Send the make, model and meter reading and we will price it today. Free pickup anywhere in Queensland.
Call 0438 137 938