Most of us have a printer that, of course, uses cartridges to print. No big deal. Sooner or later, those cartridges get empty and utilized. This is amazing, but with current level of environment care and protection, most printer cartridges end up in landfill. The share of cartridges that are recycled or reused in a way, don’t even reach 50%, according to a new research done by InfoTrends.

The notorious “razor and blades” business model of printer makers suggests selling cheap hardware and making up on printer supplies. That has little to do with supporting environmental goals, since such approach generates more and more new toner and cartridges. On the other hand, original equipment manufacturers prohibit third parties re-manufacturers in every way from collecting, re-filling and recycling cartridges.

According to the InfoTrends research, gigantic amount of printer cartridges are used daily, and both original and third party manufacturers are eager to collect the largest amount of empty cartridges possible. The two sides have different way of dealing with collected cartridges: OEMs recycle them; broking down into component materials, while the re-manufacturers refill and resell cartridges, at lower prices.

The research says, re-manufacturers are more effective at gathering empty cartridges:

Third-party party supplies companies collect 70% more empty OEM toner cartridges and 700% more empty OEM inkjet cartridges than the OEMs themselves.

Original manufacturers seem to be using recycling as a way to keep used cartridges away from being remanufactured by third-party companies, who would then sell them cheaper, thus reducing OEM’s profit. This is also reflected in the research:

Through remanufacturing, 3rd party supplies companies are able, on average, to reduce overall demand for new cartridges by about 20%.

Another thing that make reuse of printer cartridges harder is a vast diversity of cartridge shapes and sizes. Should there be several standard types and sizes of cartridges, like with soda bottles, reuse will be a lot easier. Besides, cartridges a re simply not designed for reuse, because every following cycle of use reduces the possibility of making profit on the printer cartridge. This statement finds the support in the research:

80 percent of re-manufactured toner cartridges and 86 percent of re-manufactured inkjet cartridges are thrown away’ because it is uneconomic to refill them again.

Moreover, both OEMs and third party re-manufacturers are not “designed” yet to reuse printer cartridges:

Transparent and public reporting of environmental performance was not available from several OEMs or any of the re-manufacturers surveyed.

Those who support environment protection unlikely to see the situation changing until printer makers shift to other business model and start to design printer cartridges for reuse.

Submit to:

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Printer makers aggressively advertise and market the printing devices they produce. It is a common sight when an inkjet printer sells for pennies, even in the red. Prices for laser printers and copiers are constantly dropping too, making the devices more affordable to increasing number of customers. Obviously, this is supposed to create a favorable environment for digital printing at home.

However, a survey shows that among 7.7 billion of digitally printed materials such as brochures, postcards, business cards, etc. in 2007, only 48% are produced at home. Compared to last year’s 64%, this is a substantial decrease. Surprising, isn’t it?

The decrease in home printing, in turn, caused printer manufacturers to drop price up to 30% on personal printers to make them more appealing to customers. Printer manufacturers are doing a great job convincing consumers to try printing their materials at home.

If you are a printer owner, you, probably, know that consumables cost can easily pull out the money you saved on printer. Inks and cartridges can match the price of good wine; photo paper prices easily catch up those of securities at NY Stock Exchange. All this makes home-based printing something distant from being cost-effective.

Ultimately, the increase in digital photo printing does not seem large enough for printer manufacturers to rest assured. It is a fact that although consumers are biased towards using their digital cameras, pictures are now often shared via the internet, instead of being printed.

Submit to:

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Have you lived long enoigh to remember how roller printer looked like? Now forget it, because here comes a roller printer you’ve never seen before!

Jin Woo Han, a product designer from South Korea, realized his vision of a roller printer. The device is capable of printing on extremely long lengths of paper, so you can make banner and panoramic pictures at home. The printer has a built-in cutter to produce regular sized (A4 and A3) pages.

The printer exist only as as 3-d concept model and not available anywhere, but when and if released as a commercial product, it would be a gadget attractive enough to compete with iPods and iPhones. See for youself:

Submit to:

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

If you considered yourself a happy owner of a color laser printer, you probably won’t be so happy any longer.

In 2005 Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization supporting customers’ freedoms in the world of electronics, made a discovery that didn’t have much publicity. Every document printed on most color laser printers includes a set of yellow dots used to identify the printer. These dots are invisible to naked eye, but can be clearly seen under microscope or intense blue light.

The dots make up a pattern unique to each printer, so it’s possible to identify the serial number, make and model of printer. Given that most of color laser printers sell directly from the manufacturer or through well-documented service providers, it becomes easy to track the owner of printer. So, everything you print can, and pretty much will, be used against you.

Why on earth, something like this would happen? One of the reasons why might be an agreement of US government and most printer manufacturers to help track down currency counterfeiters. Technological advancement of printing and photocopying devices made it easier to forge money, and with the yellow marks the counterfeit can be tracked back to its origin.

On the other hand, the same technique may be used to track any other printed materials, including those you considered personal. No law requires printer manufacturers to use that kind of embedded markings. No law prevents government services from tracking and collecting the information using these markings.

However, there is something you can do about this. Remember that color laser printers don’t make hidden dots, if printing in black-and-white mode. Monochrome laser printer, as well as inkjet and dot-matrix printers are also dots-free. The Electronic Frontier Foundation maintains and regularly updates a list of printers that do and don’t have the tracking dots. Just check it out to see if your printer is spying on you or not.

Submit to:

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!