NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - For those tired of spending half the price of a printer just to get a few new ink cartridges, relief may soon be at hand.

Drugstore Walgreens (Research) will soon launch a system that allows customers to refill their old printer cartridge for about $12 to $15, or half the price of replacing the entire cartridge, according to a report Friday in USA Today.

The newspaper also said OfficeMax (Research) and Office Depot (Research) are testing similar arrangements.

The stores are able to charge so much less for the service because profit margins on printer cartridges, where printer manufacturers make most of their money, are so high, the article said.

It is unclear what kind of impact the refill service will have on printer manufacturers, but they skewered the idea.

"Refillers are providing you with used cartridges with print heads that were not designed for multiple uses and with ink that is not optimized for use with the printer," Tim Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for printer maker Lexmark (Research), told the newspaper.

There appears to be some evidence to back up Fitzpatrick's contentions.

Consumer Reports recently released a study saying remanufactured and refilled cartridges are not as efficient at printing photos, so people don't save much by using them, according to the article.

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