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To those who are fond of creating nail arts and embellishing their nails with fancy designs, you'll surely like our today's post. It's not actually a craft or recycling project, it's just a plain art project for nail art lovers out there. Of course with a touch of technology, we'll make the hard way turn into a very simple process with the use of a laser printer.

Who would have thought that laser printers can also play an important role in lavishing your nails with coloured prints. Before we go through the instructions, first you have to prepare some the required materials below :
  • laser printer
  • paper materials (compatible for laser printing)
  • nail polish and nail polish remover
  • clear nail polish (for top coating)

To start, get all those designs printed using your laser printer, this art project works best with digital scrap book papers. Make sure those designs will fit onto your nails, if not just cut them accordingly to the size of your nails. For better results, print a test page with the design you want and see if it fits.

Once you're done printing the designs, we now go to the step of coloring your nails. Use any color of nail polish depending on your preference, take note that it will serve as the base or background of the designs, so might as well check if the color are not contradicting each other. Cover your nails with enough polish and let it dry completely for a few minutes.

While waiting for your nails to dry out, get the printed materials ready by arranging the cut outs, if they're not yet cut, asked someone for help as you might ruin the nail polish that you're waiting to dry.

Double check your nails if the polish is completely dried, if so proceed on this step, using a small paintbrush dampen the opposite side of the printout with nail polish remover. Then choose which nail you'll use it and press it firmly with the printed area facing your nail, avoid moving it once placed. Wet it once more with the polish remover while pressing down firmly, don't put much pressure.

If you think the print has been transferred properly in your nail, lift the cut out from its edge and peel off the paper. Supposedly the toner print must stick with the base nail polish, if it does then you made it right. Just do the same process to the other nails until you're done with all of it. Again let it dry in a few more minutes to let the toners stick firmly onto the nail polish.

Remove any paper residue before applying the clear nail polish as a coating. Be very careful with this last step, you may smear the design with improper application. To avoid it, apply the clear nail polish by running it once each nail just make you covered the whole of it.

Isn't it too easy? Just follow the instructions carefully and you're good to go. Also, make sure you're laser printer has enough of consumables for this project, unless you want to run downtown for a replacement while waiting for your nails to dry out. Kidding aside, you can also use compatibles or recycled toner cartridges, output has no difference at all.

 
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It's kind of easy to assume the process of ink cartridges recycling, someone can say it's just grinding and melting then voila you have a new ink container. But everything in the process of recycling takes more than just those two things. Quality control and a lot of complicated steps must be delivered in order to cope with the daily demand for replacement printer consumables.

From original cartridges, after they run out of inks, users may either send them back or deliver it directly to many recycling facilities. Then, returned cartridges undergo sorting and cleaning, by removing any harmful metals and non-plastic materials from each container. We're talking about recyling plastic-made materials, thus any other components aside from plastic must be separated. Afterwards, here goes the famous grinding process where it harshly chopped and cut all those cartridges into tiny little pieces.

After grinding and shredding, extra ingredients were added into the mixture such as shredded PET bottles and the likes, to make them more sturdy and pliable just like a new cartridge made from virgin materials. The mixture is then toss into an enormous V-shaped blending machine to grind the materials again and let all the components blend well. The raw mixture will be extruded from the machine, which then be used for manufacturing new replacement cartridges.

Indeed, it's more likely easy to refill a small container with inks or toners, but considering the ecological impacts of doing such thing, I'd gladly reject the option. Choosing eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges for all printing needs is still way better than any other options available. Instead of manufacturing new printer cartridges using virgin materials from our natural resources, why not invest on establishing more recycling plants. Quality control plays a key-role in the recycling process. It may seem too complicated right now but economically and environmentally speaking, printer cartridges recycling has a lot of good points.

 
The video above explains the process on how HP recycles all returned and used printer cartridges. Everything was explained by none other than Mr. Dean Miller, Hewlett-Packard's programme lead for printer cartridges recycling.

HP made it successful to developed a close loop recycling program which gives second life to all plastic materials by turning them into printer cartridges. Before, it used to be more of like shredding each pieces of used toner and ink cartridges into tiny little pieces. Such process can shred thousands of plastic wastes in just an hour, however it creates a contaminated mixture of several materials which come from the cartridges. Upon discovering it, HP developed a better way of recycling printer consumables, and that is by dismantling those materials instead of crushing them.

Result-wise HP achieved what they want, and that is to have a contaminant-free and much cleaner recycling process. Basically the process includes : scrapping off the label, cutting the lid, removing electronic components as well as the pads, then lastly a robot arm tosses the ink/toner tank into a receptacle. Chemical additives are also involve in the recycling process to make each recycled cartridges as sturdy and good as new.

So to those who are still doubtful whether to use or not to use recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges, there we have the video, and there you have a very well known company stating facts about recycling. If there's such company that promotes and acknowledges cartridge recycling as a better option to improve ecological impacts, what hinders you from not participating on such great act?

Recycle your printer cartridges, used, empty, or worn-out, whatever it is, send them out to your respective manufacturer, they should know what to do with those. There are several options and ways that you can choose from on how to return cartridges back to them, instead of letting those printer waste end up in the landfill. Let those plastic wastes have their new life as a useful printer cartridge.


 
When was the last time you upcycled some worn out or used materials? Giving those reusable stuffs a second life isn't a sweaty task, in fact its a fun way of recycling your waste materials instead of throwing them away and probably end up in the landfills.

While browsing the net, I was surprised to see a lot of clever crafts and creations that were made from used consumables particularly those empty printer ink cartridges. Here are some of the best upcycling ideas that I've found:

Epson ink cartridges turn into a lighting fixture.
Lowell and Louise, the artists behind the colorful and fancy small chandelier. They make use of various ink cartridges, arranged it into a circular shape like a lamp cover, then hang it using an aluminum bar screwed on a chain. Since the cartridges were already empty, once the bulb at the center lights on it creates a luminous effect. Actually the couple didn't remove the brand stickers which makes the light a little bit dim. However the color of each ink cartridges creates a subtle variation, so therefore I agree on not removing the stickers.

Discarded printer cartridges turn into a bike path.
Way back 2010, Australian National Park Service created a bike path made entirely of worn out ink cartridges. It reaches 10.6 mile that stretches along the northwest territory of Australia between Alice Springs and Simpsons Gap. Although it cost them about $330,000 to finish it up, the remarkable experience of every bikers that crosses and appreciates it is priceless.

Empty HP ink cartridges turn into a USB drive.
Actually it was just a do-it-yourself craft that anyone can do with their USBs and printer cartridges. If you're interested on doing it, check out this link Printer Cartridge USB Drive. It's plain and simple, just make a hole on the opposite side of the cartridge where the chip is embedded, punch it or hammer it, your choice. Make sure the hole is large enough so you can insert the USB drive. Try to make the hole in a rectangular shape, then put the USB drive inside the cartridge and let the metal part (the one you plug into the port) out. Glue it and make it secure so you can hold the cartridge like it's the main USB itself.

Who said that upcycling is a hefty task? Imagine thousands of printer cartridges are just being dumped in the landfills, and just a small fraction of them are being recycled. Aside from those recycling organizations and facilities that accept returned printer consumables, indeed they help on reusing plastic materials by providing recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges. But still there's a huge number of discarded ink and toner cartridges that end up in incinerators and mostly in the landfills.

 
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Considering recycling your printer consumables? That's a good thing to know, and hopefully more people would consider doing it not only with their printer consumables but also to all their e-waste. I'm sure you've found your own reason why you opt to recycle those materials. Well to help you more on deciding whether to recycle or to not recycle, let me give you guys some known facts regarding the impacts of printer cartridges. Learning these information will prove that your decision to recycle is really a good move.

Where does waste end up? Not only cartridges, but all e-waste end up in incinerators or landfills, either way both will create harmful effects for the environment. There's an annual estimated count of 200 million pounds of printer consumables end up in landfills.

Think about the population, imagine if every house all around the world is using a printer. In reality, about 1.2 trillion of printer ink cartridges are being used year after year. Unfortunately, only 30% of all these are recycled.

Ink and toner cartridges are made of plastic components, hence petroleum and oil resources are consumed in the production of such products. It takes a gallon of oil in order to produce a single toner cartridge. Since ink tanks are smaller than toner tank, considerably they require less oil.

In the United States alone, more than 10 pieces of printer cartridges are thrown and disposed every second. How about with the other countries, US is not the only place in the world that market printer equipments.

Do you know the exact circumference of the earth? Actually you'll know it if all the discarded printer consumables were put in line, it can unbelievably circle the earth thrice.

Through recycling everyone can nearly conserve approximately 2.5 pounds of natural resources. Additionally, recycled products are half way cheaper than most branded market goods, thus becoming an alternative source to save. Participating in recycling programs can help in the sustainability and preservation of the environment, so you better start joining now. Switch to eco-friendly, recycled toner cartridges or ink cartridges and promote green printing practices.

 
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I know that Earth Day is over, but it shouldn't be used as a reason not to become Eco-conscious everyday. We should be living day after day like it's always Earth Day. Like every morning is a fun green day to start a healthy and environment friendly life. It isn't that hard to imagine, then why not bring it to life right?

If each and everyone of us are considering this idea, maybe our problem regarding pollutions, wastes and global warming will finally lessen until such time that they're totally gone. Tree planting is very easy, it also has a lot of good benefits for everyone not only to the environment. You plant a tree, then you have your dose of exercise cause it can be a sweaty task. It filters the air around you especially if it grows older and bigger, also it creates a shade where you can take a break and relax while reading. Those who often waste paper materials should plant a tree at least once a month, but it doesn't mean you can still continue wasting.

Reduce the amount of waste, say you're bins are almost full at the end of the day with all those wastes and trash you throw on it. Then why not try to practice monitoring yourself how frequent do you throw garbage, what are these waste and where did you get them. Analyzing the source of your wastes will tend to reduce the accumulated trashes in your bins. After a week or so try to see if there's any changes on the amount of garbage generated inside each bin.

Turn off the lights! Just like the water from your faucets, if you didn't turn it off, water will still drip from it which will result to high water bills. Appliances and machines that are not in use yet still plugged from an outlet are still consuming energy. If you don't want that power eating vampire in your house or office, make it a habit to unplug all equipments that are not in use.

Speaking of machines, any office or house nowadays has a printer equipment. For one reason, printing became a necessity on our daily lives. There we have the paper works, kids research projects, reports and business files, as well as bills, unless you applied paperless billing that would be good enough. If you're practicing green printing then we don't have to argue, but if you're one from the list of naughty people, perhaps you need to examine yourself. What else can you do for the environment? Use recycled materials, for printing there are less expensive recycled paper products, plus those remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges. Don't opt for it just to save, consider using them to aid on the preservation of natural resources and the protecting the environment.

 
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For this day as we all commemorate the 43rd Earth Day, let's celebrate it by doing a very simple thing for our planet. Go paperless just this once, guess it wouldn't affect that much in your business if instead of printing why not send those files and reports thru email. Turn the printer off and give it a day off just for today. You wouldn't notice it, but our planet would greatly appreciate it if you tried doing it. I mean you can reduce power consumption, hence lowering energy bills, then you can conserve paper materials and inks/toners which you can use for the next few days.

You see, it isn't that bad to keep soft copies of your files, or just send a group email to your co-employees. Reports can also be saved on storage devices then view it anytime you needed. Our goal is to make an action that could bring a total advantage for the environment this Earth Day 2013. In the first place, it's not only for the environment alone, as you might have notice, doing such things can reduce your business or office cost through eliminating the use of printer and similar devices. Additionally, since you halt any printing works, paper materials and power usage may also decrease.

If it can't be help, say you really need to make a print, try to make sure your devices are equipped with recycled consumables such as recycled paper printing materials, remanufactured toner cartridges or ink cartridges whichever your machine requires. Thus, using environment friendly products and supplies can still be considered a better option on promoting sustainability and aids in protecting our environment.

Less energy consumption means less carbon footprint, and reducing the use of paper products means saving a couple of trees from being cut down. It is not as hard as you can imagine, exercise your environmental responsibilities by doing such things for our planet. Who knows, you might have think of a way or probably came up with a solution on how your company or business can permanently eliminate or at least reduce the demand for printing and go paperless in your working environment. Again Happy Earth Day to all of you guys!

 
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Is it still ideal to own a printer right now? Basically and essentially, yes it is, as there are so many printable works that we encounter in our everyday lives. If your prefer relying on online print services, then you must be wealthy enough to support such luxury. Especially to those who are printing photos and documents of more than 10 copies daily, otherwise if your the type of guy who prints one copy a day or a week, that's more considerable.

Printer cartridges are typically expensive, but if you will try to compare their market prices before from their price range today the difference is really enormous. Additionally, decades ago some manufacturers were producing cartridges with decent amounts of inks and toners worthy enough for the price, but now cartridges in the market are yet much expensive as before with less amounts of inks. It's kind of ironic to pay more with less to take, and I thought spending more would give you valuable goods. In the case of the print industry, manufacturers are selling equipments at a lower cost, while harvesting money from cartridges sales.

Another thing with most brand new printers nowadays, they come with an initial set of cartridges filled with almost 1/3 of inks/toners. Hence, after the free cartridge set runs out of consumables which would probably won't take long, customers will have to buy a replacement to keep the machine running. Here's more surprising, you get too excited to make your first purchase of replacements for your printer, and once the cashier is done scanning your items you'll be surprise to see how much would it cost to buy the whole set of inks. More likely you would have thought of buying a new printer instead of taking some bucks out of your wallet just for about 2-3 pieces of cartridges.

No wonder why most printer users are opting for alternative consumables like remanufactured and compatible cartridges. Mainly to cut down their printing expenses and operating cost, as well as aiding on the conservation of natural resources through using recycled products. I mean it's given that OEMs can provide us the superior quality of printouts, but people are considering where can they save without compromising the quality of their purchased. It's not a requirement to switch to low-cost printer consumables, but once you tried using remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges, you can even say "it's not bad", and probably you'll end up using it over OEMs.

 
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Printing Technology affects the environment in several ways and reasons. Just by printing a single page, you consumed energy and paper material, hence releasing carbon footprint as well. According to US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), an estimated count of 10,00 pages were being printed by office workers alone, per year. Imagine that figure, what more if we also add the approximate annual printouts from all home offices and professional individuals, that can be totally massive.

Everybody makes print, I mean everyone requires printing anything from school works, office materials, personal documents, files and so on. Thus, since it has became a typical thing to do everyday, maybe we should think of more ways to make an efficient and eco-friendly printing solution. Reduce paper, ink and energy usage when printing, that will help you, your business or office to cut the cost of printing in half, while reducing carbon footprint as well.

Do you know that manufacturing paper materials also require water resources? Instead of saying you can save water and trees by conserving paper products, let's put it his way, you are wasting natural resources from land and water with every sheet of paper you worthlessly used. Let me remind you that duplexing or double-sided printing is already developed in most printers nowadays, so might as well use it as often as you could. Also, there's the N-in-1 feature that allows printing several pages of document in a single sheet. These features and more of it are just being neglected by most businesses when they should be applying it instead.

Just like turning the lights off whenever not in use, it also applies to all equipments. Always imply to turn the printer OFF after printing or when it is not needed. Sleep mode which are commonly supported by high-end printers is actually not ideal, because it still consume energy compared to a totally shut down printer.

Reduce your annual printing cost through using recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges, ask your retailer or manufacturer if they're providing such products. Major printer manufacturers in the Print Industry are also recycling empty and used cartridges, so why would you worry about using it. Hewlett Packard as one of the tech giants are proud to promote their company's recycling programs, as well as Lexmark International which globally accepts returned Lexmark toner cartridges for recycling purposes.

Be wise and don't let the technology get between you and saving the environment. Get to manage your printing habits with more efficient and effective ways to cut down annual printing cost, reduce energy and paper consumption, conserve natural resources and of course reduce your carbon footprint.

 
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Why do we have to choose recycled products, and why do we have to use them? To narrow our today's topic, let's focus on tackling about recycled consumables and commodities from the print industry.

Printers are now a common equipment to most houses, offices and businesses. Mainly because in our today's professional lifestyle printing became a necessity. Also, the market value of printers notably dropped that you can even purchased a new one as much as you can replace your mobile phone.

Now how is it related to the question "why must we use recycled products"? Let me try to explain it as brief as possible. Printers in order to work, requires ink or toner cartridges. Once its consumables run out of ink or toner, the user will have to replace it as soon as possible or else the machine won't work properly. If you buy a printer today, it's common that it includes a set of cartridges, which as not everyone knows that these "free trial" cartridges contain less than half full of inks or toners. Eventually the printer will soon run out of inks with just a few prints, in short you have to purchase a new set of replacements. The process goes on and on, the cartridges will get empty then again you will buy replacement. Without you even noticing it, the cost is inclining year after year, as well as the accumulated wastes from empty and used ink tanks.

Guess you probably get an answer to our question. If we will only use brand new printer consumables, in the end, resources, energy and supplies will only get scarce until there's no more left for us to manufacture. But through using recycled products, we are extending the span and usage limit of a material, hence we're giving them new life. Recycled printer consumables or commonly called as remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges are one of the available solutions that we can embrace.

Indeed we can get a lot of saving when we opt for these products, but let's not close our minds to such reason, regardless that we cut down printing expense or not, the essence of using recycled cartridges is mainly to preserve and protect our environment. Aside from remanufactured cartridges, there are recycled paper materials that we could use as an alternative. You might as well like to read this post about Recycled Toner Cartridges and Ink Cartridges.

    Author

    Fiel Mori Promotes Eco Friendly stuffs and creating environment friendly articles for everyone @PrintGreen



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