Studies, researches and surveys… how little we would knew without them. Another test of ink cartridges efficiency was commissioned by TÜV Rheinland for Epson. The idea of the test was to find out how much ink is actually wasted every time a cartridge is thrown away.

The thing is, many inkjet printer and multifunctions use multi-ink cartridges, e.g. cartridges containing three or more color. When you print photos or graphics, one color inevitably runs out faster than others, and printer says, “Oops, you’re out of ink”. However, cartridge usually does contain some amount of other than depleted colors. Despites, you need to go shopping for another cartridge to print further.

Not only wasted cartridges with ink do cost you more in terms of upfront cash and cost-per-page effectiveness, they are also environmentally more hazardous than just empty cartridge. With single-color cartridges there’s no such problem, the ink is used completely (well, actually not completely, I won’t be a nerd on this point). And the single-color cartridge might be one praised and promoted in this test, since Epson uses such cartridges widely in its printers.

Anyway, the results of the research are terrible: up to 50% per cent of ink is wasted when printing business documents. Making photos is a bit more ink-use effective – “only” 40% is thrown away. It’s worth mentioning that cartridges tested (both single and multi-ink) presented multiple brands, including Epson, Lexmark, Canon, HP, Kodak, and Brother. By the way, the first prize went to… Epson, who else did you think?