Going Green: More than combining Cyan and Yellow
In this article, we don’t mean creating a vivid green ink on the page your printer churns out, though high quality printing is always nice. But when it comes to greening up the environment and business, the best kind of regulatory measures are the voluntary sort. That’s why we’re excited about this article, published on ComputerWorldUK, which reports that manufacturers are voluntarily regulating “energy efficiency of devices, ink and paper use, and recycling of devices and ink cartridges.”
source: stedwards.edu
Okay, so the UK isn’t exactly next door to us, geographically speaking, but that doesn’t mean we don’t seek to decrease our carbon footprint in the US here as well, and we think this is worthy of applause. But what can you, as a consumer, do to help in this cause? Other than boycotting manufacturers who aren’t adhering to green concerns, it may seem like there’s not much you can do-but there is.
Let’s start with energy efficient devices. Again, aside from boycotting or only buying those devices which are certified energy efficient, there isn’t a whole lot any one person can do as a consumer. However, that’s no small contribution. Any manufacturer not adhering to energy efficiency guidelines will change their song if customers are no longer attracted to a product.
What about ink and paper use? There are several ways you can maximize your ink and paper use. Print on both sides of a sheet of paper. Print more sheets per page or print smaller than one hundred percent, if you can. If you’re printing something that is just for your reference, and it’s one sided, you can use the other side to make notes (it isn’t often recommended to feed that page back into your printer, particularly if said printer isn’t designed to print on both sides). When a page is totally used up, shred and recycle instead of throwing it away.
Recycling devices and ink cartridges is one of the best ways consumers can go green with printing. You can also choose to buy refurbished or refilled ink cartridges, which will make good use of those recycled cartridges and save you money. Refilling cartridges on your own can lead to a lot of stained shirt sleeves, so you might try buying refilled cartridges. If you have additional questions about remanufactured ink cartridges, you can find some answers
We all want to live in a beautiful world that looks as great to the naked eye as quality printed pictures from National Geographic can look. Part of that means taking on some of the responsibility of maintaining our own environmental footprint, to preserve the world we live in. Recycling an ink cartridge or spending a few extra minutes online to find a printer that’s rated energy efficient can seem like a tiny contribution, but if everyone participates, together we can make a difference in the protection and preservation of our natural world; we can even enjoy high quality printers, ink and toner cartridges at the same time.
