Products seem to be delivered to the consumer in ever more packaging these days. And the consumer is forced to pay for it in the end — not just environmentally but financially as well. Tax dollars go to pay to reuse or recycle excess packaging — or to truck it to a landfill site.

In European Union countries an appropriate law came into force which makes overpackaging illegal. As part of the Europe-wide rules on packaging, packaging must now be manufactured so that “its volume and weight is limited to the minimum adequate amount to maintain the necessary level of safety, hygiene and acceptance of the packed product for the consumer.”

In Germany, for example, you can see a distinct difference in the way products are packaged. The same products you can buy in the United States are available there with less packaging, less-toxic or non-toxic components and more recyclability because manufacturers must comply with federal laws that require them to design their products for the environment, not the dump.

Historically, the United States hasn’t been big on that kind of federal legislation. This is the land where the consumer is king or queen, so it’s up to us to make this kind of change happen.

One-third of American garbage is packaging materials, according to the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington.

And there’s not necessarily a good reason for it. Many companies are simply following convention and haven’t looked into better ways to package their products.

Not only is minimal packaging better for the environment, it also costs less to produce. Companies can save a lot of money when they reduce packaging.

Printer cartridges add to the problem of overpackaging, too. This picture speaks for itself:

The small grey object you can see in the middle of the picture is an ink cartridge, most of the rest of the stuff you see is waste. The cartridge comes in a small sealed plastic pouch, which is in a box with various papers. This is then packaged in an entirely unnecessary plastic container which is virtually impossible to open.

This is one thing.

Another thing is that when you buy ink and toner cartridges online, seller often add styrofoam packing peanuts or other filler to prevent possible damage of cartridge in parcel. Taking into account that a toner cartridge box usually already contains protective filler (for instance, HP toner cartridge is surrounded by an air-filled safety “jacket” in box), it even increases overpackaging and, eventually, lanfill.

More important is that these styrofoam packing peanuts cost you additional money.

However there are some advices to reduce packaging waste, be more ecologically consious and also save some movey:

• Avoid snacks and other foods wrapped in individual serving sizes. Instead, buy bigger bags of the snacks and put smaller servings in paper bags.
• Buy personal hygiene and home-cleaning products in bulk when possible.
• Buy cereal in bags instead of boxes, which usually contain bags inside.
• Buy loose fruits and vegetables instead of those packaged in Styrofoam trays and shrink-wrap. Fix your own fresh-fruit cups instead of buying cut-up fruit in plastic containers.
• Avoid buying products packaged in blister packs (molded plastic attached to cardboard.) Although sometimes blister packs serve a hygienic purpose (making sure cosmetics or medicines aren’t tampered with, for instance), they are often unnecessary.
• Use fewer individual serving-size bottles of water and juices.
• Buy ink and toner cartridge at Toner Cartridge Depot.

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What kind of printer to select for you office depends of how big that office is and here is why. The size of the office demands same volumes of printing: two-person business hardly prints 500 pages a month, while a corporation that occupies a whole building may produce thousands pages a week.

So, the first question you must answer yourself is how much you are going to print. Another important factor of selecting a printer is what kind of output you will produce: text, graphics, photos or a mixture of them, in other words, do you need to paint a picture or to create the thousand words that describe it?

Keeping these 2 things in mind, you have two major options: inkjet printer or laser printer.

Inkjets Can Print Less, Lasers More

Do you print a lot, or does your office have a lot of people printing? Laser printers with their faster engines, higher-capacity paper trays, and higher monthly duty cycles can pump out longer documents and handle a steady pile of printouts. (Networking is a given for multiperson offices; you’ll find plenty of inkjets and lasers that offer Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or both.) Printers that have automatic duplexing can save paper. If you don’t print that much - a few dozen pages a day, nothing too complicated - an inkjet or low-capacity laser might work just fine.

A small office manager should keep to 2 rules of thumb:

• your input tray should exceed your daily print volume
• your ink or toner cartridge’s page yield should exceed your monthly print volume

There is a middle ground. A one-person office might not need networking. A lower-volume office that prints less than 100 pages per day could be happy with an inkjet printer. Some office-oriented inkjets offer faster speed, bigger paper trays, and better plain-paper print quality, rivaling the capabilities of lower-end lasers.

Inkjets Are Good at Graphics, Lasers at Text

An inkjet printer excels at painting a picture. Though inkjets have greatly improved in speed and text quality in recent years, their strong side is graphics quality. Inkjets can achieve a wider range of colors and produce smoother-looking images than all but the most sophisticated (and astronomically priced) color laser printers. Some can print well even on everyday stock.

A thousand words will look better coming from a laser. Lasers set the gold standard for printing precise text and if that’s all you do, a simple monochrome laser could fit nicely. Color lasers or solid-ink color printers, such as those from Xerox can handle simple graphics such as pie charts and logos, and they can print decent photos, too.

Maybe a Multifunction?

Multifunction devices are also printers that have copy, scan, and sometimes fax function combined in one device. These printers are becoming more popular with offices that need to do a lot in a limited amount of space. It costs money to stuff all those features into one box, though; and as a result, a $700 MFP will have a less robust printer at its heart than a like-priced stand-alone printer. Some say that adding other capabilities may compromise on the primary machine, but don’t be afraid. The technology most MFP are good enought to provide high quality of printing.

While you might be tempted to buy a machine with fax functions “just in case,” think tiwce about how often you’ll use it (as opposed to scanning to e-mail, which is faster and easier). An MFP with no faxing capability will cost less. Onthe other hand, the multifunction overload is possible. If your office prints, faxes, or copies in high volume, an MFP may require you to wait to copy while someone else’s big print job finishes.

The Cost of Ownership

Because both inkjets and lasers can print a wide variety of documents, the final decision often boils down to cost. Inkjets tend to be cheaper to buy but more expensive to maintain over time. Laser and solid-ink printers cost more up-front, but they usually save you money on running costs. Here is another couple of things you should consider.

• Cost per page. Divide the price of an ink or toner cartridge by its page yield - usually available (with some digging) from the vendor’s Web site - to get a sample cost per page, not counting paper. For instance, a page of black text from a laser printer might cost one to three cents; the same page from an inkjet might cost three to five cents. Those pennies can add up quickly, especially when you use more ink for longer or more graphics-heavy documents.

  The smaller the cartridge’s page yield, the more pricy the ink or toner will be. Some ink tanks are empty after just a few hundred pages. The smallest toner cartridges (around 1000 pages) will cost more per page than a toner supply that can print 2500 or more pages.

• Other consumables. Lasers have their pricey side, too. Their toner cartridges cost a lot more up-front, especially if they contain a drum and other printer parts in addition to the toner. Other parts, such as the fuser, may cost hundreds of dollars to replace, though they may require replacing only once in the lifetime of the printer.

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TonerCartridgeDepot.com presents a new service to help you find a product in our store and probably save you money.

If you have ever done online shopping, you should agree that it has many similarities with real life shopping. In particular, this resemblance is webmasters’ effort to create an environment people got used to.

In a web store, you click through the directories and view product pages very much the same way as in a store section you would walk along the aisle between shelves and examine the products around you.

Just like in a real store, you may add and remove items of your choice to shopping cart and pay for them in the end of the shopping — at the checkout.

At first, it seems there is no alive sales manager to address your question to, but most web stores have real-time online chat operator to help you out with a problem. The only difference is you don’t see the smile (if any) of his face and the English has strong Indian or Pakistani accent, hope you are ok with that.

As you can see, it’s all looks and feels a lot like real-life shop. However, online store has at least one major feature that offline store does not – the search.

Generally, when you want to see a random specific product, you’d probably have to go up or downstairs (if in a multi-storied mall), walk through several rooms to reach the right one, find that very stand, the shelf, and there have a look at the item.

Now imagine the search is available in real life: you just think of or say out loud the name of the item, and it appears right in front of you. Well, there are some additional results relevant to your query would appear before you, too. It happens from time to time, but for most part, that’s how the search in a web store works.

There is no arguing that the search is very helpful tool to use, if you want to find a product throughout the store. Unfortunately, sometimes the search is unsuccessful no matter how hard you try.

First, it is possible that the item you are looking for is misspelled or has errors in the name or description. For example, Toner Cartridge Depot web store lists around 6,000 toner and ink cartridges as well as other printing supplies. Some factual or spelling mistakes are inevitable.

Second, the item in question may just not be there. For instance, a printer cartridge that is already available from suppliers, but not yet published on web pages of the store at the moment you’re searching for it.

What would you do then? Give up the search as hopeless? I urge you not to, for there is a way out. If you can’t find an item, let the customer support help you.

If your search for an item in our shop returned no results, you will see a form like this (it’s a picture so don’t bother trying to fill in):

Leave us your name and e-mail, and tell what kind of cartridges you were looking for (cartridge number, printer model name, ink/toner color, capacity, etc.) With 1 business day we shall contact you and tell if we really have this product or not.

Moreover, you may get a $5 discount coupon if on your request we would manage to add cartridges that were previously missing from our product database.

May all your searches be successful!

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Ladies and gentlemen, I want to make a public announcement.

It has been quite a while since I started working on this blog for Toner Cartridge Depot, and I have had enough. I can’t bear it anymore, so I made up my mind to discover the truth about this printing supplies store. Hopefully, what I’m going to tell you saves your precious time and, probably, health.

So, I would not recommend you shopping or even visiting Toner Cartridge Depot for these reasons:

1. Toner Cartridges Depot sports a nifty design

If you firmly believe that appearance is always deceiving, you will likely be shocked to discover the opposite. This means you may be subjected to stressful situation, which may unfavorably affect you health. You’d better stay away from the store.

2. Toner Cartridges Depot has been serving fellow Americans since 1997

If you are an adventurous person who likes taking risk of shopping with newly popped-up sellers this store, probably, isn’t the right place for you to shop.

3. Toner Cartridges Depot offers an expanding assortment of printing supplies

Having to make a selection from a wide range of cartridges is often stressful too. You may spend a lot of time studying and comparing each item before making a decision, you may even lose your sleep! Why would any man of sense need such problems?

4. Toner Cartridges Depot features fast and effective search coupled with simple navigation

This kind of features will deprive you of much quality time you might spend looking for your specific printer cartridges. There is no way you can find a product slow. The time-wasters, beware!

5. Toner Cartridges Depot offers free shipping for all orders

If you think saving money does not become you, or you are proud of every extra dollar dully wasted, I believe you should go find some other place to buy printer toner cartridges.

6. Toner Cartridges Depot accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express credit cards for payments

If you cannot accept that someone accepts most popular credit cards – who in the world would do such weird thing, huh? – contact me the soonest, soul mate! Perhaps, together we may find a store that accepts credits cards unknown to general public.

7. Toner Cartridges Depot provides a secure ordering and payment system

via Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol for transmitting private documents via the Internet. If you cannot live a day without pushing your luck and making insecure transaction over the Internet, this store is unlikely a place for someone like you, sorry.

8. Toner Cartridges Depot never discloses any information it collects from customers

If you innocently want to become famous through leaving your personal data in the hope that someone publishes it, you expectations are never to come true. Sorry about that, too.

9. Toner Cartridges Depot ships using major post services of UPS, FedEx and US Postal Service

If there is any chance that you don’t like these delivery services (like, they ship too fast, and you are not that kind of man who approves of any haste), refrain from shopping with the store for the sake of peace of your mind.

10. Toner Cartridges Depot guarantees 45-Day Money-Back

If you think this is unacceptable to have a whole month and a half to make sure the products are all right, and kind of spoils you as a customer, I would suggest looking for another shop that does not offer a trial period that long.

Well, I tried my best to persuade you from shopping or even visiting Toner Cartridge Depot. End of announcement.

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Every time we go online, we expect the web to give us something new. Some news we receive “automatically”, like the e-mail messages from your friends or newsletters from your favorite website. Other information doesn’t come easy. To find it we often have to make a search.

The search is what modern Internet relies on. Searching engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN has become an integral part on everyday life online. Can you imaging yourself digging through billions and billions of web pages looking for, once we’re into printers, the specification of a new printer or printer cartridge compatibility? Neither can I, and that’s why we all love searching engines – they are here for us trying to provide most relevant results.

However, it’s not only the search engines that are expected to provide effective search.

Now let’s fancy another situation: you’re up to buying something online, let it be toner cartridges (remember, we’re still into printers). If you have a favorite printer cartridges store, you would go there and make a purchase. If you don’t have a favorite store, I suppose you would use a searching engine to find one, and let’s suppose you have. What you’ve just done is made a search — selected one shop from thousand of others. The only thing left to do is to find those very cartridges for you particular printer.

Do you know how many ink and toner cartridges exists? I’ m not sure there is an exact figure, but for what I know, average online printer supply store sell 3-5 thousand cartridges. I believe no one argues that every online store selling more than even a hundred different items should have a good search, or, at least, have the products categorized convenient and well. You would get to like a store where you can find the product you need fast and easy, wouldn’t you?

What I’m going to tell you is not just singing praises to the online store of Toner Cartridge Depot. In fact, this printing supplies outlet does feature powerful search and handy navigation. Treat it like a guide to shopping with Toner Cartridge Depot.

So, let’s assume you got to this store while searching for printer cartridges. What’s next? From now on you have several ways to find your supplies.

The Catalogue

On the main page, right before your eyes is the list of manufacturers/brands.

Generally, these are who made your printing device you are looking supplies for (though there are some who don’t make printers themselves, but only cartridges for other’s printer). Clicking the required brand (say Hewlett Packard) will take you further to next page.

Here you can see types of devices produced by given manufacturer and model families existing for each type. The printer’s family name is usually written on its case. For instance, if you have an HP Color LaserJet 4500 printer, “Color LaserJet” would be the family name. Select your model family to move on. You landed on a page with a list of models existing within given model family.

Now you are one click away from the supplies you need. All you have to do is to select your printing device model. If you are not sure what the model’s name and number are, check them on the front panel of device’s casing. So choose the model and see what supplies we got for it. Apart from genuine supplies, a range of compatible and remanufactured cartridges is often available for some most popular printer models. As a rule, they are a bargain purchase, so you may consider them as well.

The Quick Supplies Finder

This is a very handy navigation tool that allows you to find printer cartridges pretty much like in the Way 1, unless you don’t need to move from one page to another. Quick Supplies Finder is a set of three dropdown menus: the first menu selects a brand, the second one selects a device type, and while the third menu helps you chose your model. Having chosen the model, you will be transferred to a page containing supplies for that printing device model.

The Search

Finally, Way 3, the highlight of today’s performance, the Toner Cartridge Depot search algorithm. This is a small input field in the top bar in upper-right corner of a page, but it’s more than meets the eye.

The search is easier when you know what you are looking for, be it printer model or printer cartridge number. You simply enter one or the other into search filed and press enter. Should there any matches, you will see them in search results.

But what if you, somehow, don’t know either model of your printer or the cartridge number? That’s pretty unusual situation, but the search rates just all right against general queries. Let’s suppose, you have some laser printer by HP and you ran out of color toner. Natural thing to search is “color toner cartridges for HP”. Voila! The search returns only color cartridges for laser printers made by HP. Additionally, you can narrow your search by several criteria like color, brand, supplies yield, condition and type. Oh, almost forgot! Also, you may sort the search results by order, description, price or quantity to be added.

In given example below, you can specify the exact color of the toner cartridge you need and its condition:

You can try entering any other queries of your choice or need. You are welcome to let us know if you get unexpected results.

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