Printing is generally a part of peoples everyday lives especially those who are in a very busy working environments. Others are very much concern of the expense their printer generates from replacements supplies, while there are those who don't care at all. We're providing solutions that promote environment friendly printing, from which it includes educating those who don't care to start caring from now on. One effective way of reducing printing cost is by setting the printer to print only with black inks.

Print your files and documents using only the black cartridge will certainly reduce the overall cost of printing. Whilst it requires you to buy black ink cartridges more often, this doesn't mean it'll bring much trouble with the expense. Just so you know, black ink tanks are less costly than those colour tanks, that's why it is more wise to get a spent black ink rather than any of the colour ones.

Econo-mode or draft or black-only printing, whatever you call it, they're all quite the same, a printer feature that restricts the machine to print only in black. It's economical indeed, especially for those who have a printer that can still work even with a single cartridge installed which is the black. Do you know why it's not ideal to print without the black cartridge and let the colour cartridges do the printing? Once you send print jobs to the machine and there's no black ink to pull through, the printer will make use of what's available, and will combine the three colors to create a dark ink equivalent in replace for black.

In the same manner, the drawback of using only the black may result to some odd quality prints, perhaps a bit dull or lacks vividness. Gray-scale printing is what they commonly called it, since the output in Econo-mode are less clear or more close to gray shade. For this reason, it is advisable to use black ink cartridge alone only if the file you're about to print is not that important or is not intended for office use. Surely you don't want your reports and graphs to look less professional than it should be.

HP and Epson printers are two of the most prominent brands that support black ink or Econo-mode printing. It lets you save inks/toners by printing in draft mode, as mentioned earlier. If your primary reason is to save your printer's consumables, toner-saving mode is expected to consume 40-50% less inks/toners with every print. That would be enough to extend the life of your cartridges or possible draw out more prints from them. Additionally, if you prefer more savings, why not opt for eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges which retailers are selling for half the price of original counterparts. Just don't use let the price tricked you, sometimes we're not aware that our eagerness to save compromises the quality we may get.
 
Many of us view printer supplies as disposable materials, though they are indeed disposable, for a fact they're also recyclable. Breaking down these consumables or disassembling them will be enough to reused the components which still have use. When cartridge recycling process was developed, they thought of it as a way to cut down the overall cost of manufacturing printer supplies. Now it is considered as a primary method of disposing printer cartridges and preventing these products from ending up in the landfills. The world of recycling seems to offer a better way of getting rid of our own waste in a green and much environment friendly manner.

Various organizations, profit and non-profit, either ways they promote and offer recycling services for any individuals or group that would like to have their post-consumer waste be recycled. They educate people about the proper ways and solutions they may use to get rid of their empty and used printer cartridges without resulting any harm to the environment. What are the items they can recycle, how are they recycled and how can they send their waste for recycling purposes. Getting rid of our e-waste isn't that hard as you think of, there are certain strategies you need to learn to be part of the recycling world.

To eliminate having land-fillers, first we need to stop viewing them as one, then find a way to reuse or recycle them. These resources might help you understand how things work and what are the things related in recycling printer cartridges.

Benefits Of Recycling
Learn facts and benefits of recycling ink and toner cartridges. Also it provides a brief information about the process of recycling empty printer consumables so we can get recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges.

EvolveRecycle Recycling Facts
Aside from the services they offer, there's this post that gives an ample of known recycling facts for almost all sorts of electronic gadgets and devices.

What Can I Recycle
ThinkGreen provides information and solutions on how we can conserve natural resources by letting you learn when and what items to dispose and to recycled.

Disposing Ink and Toner Cartridges
This one gives a few options for you to consider when planning to get rid of your printer supplies the eco-friendly manner. You'll learn ways to earn money by simply participating to a recycling organization or build your own recycling program and have a better role to play on protecting the environment.

 
There are notes you should always remember if you want to start having a greener life, business or whatsoever. The term "green" does not always implies about diet where you take veggy and leafy bites everyday, although yes it is associated. But right now we're using that particular term to promote environmental acts that may help conserve and protect our environment through simple yet effective deeds. Back to the three notes these includes, first track your own environmental impacts (mainly the negative ones that we need to improve). Second is to determine how will you manage to get rid of those negative impacts. And lastly, never ever think that recycling will cost a fortune or will break the bank.

Starting with the first one, this specially applies to a business owner or a manager. Tracking where the money goes in and out of a business is indeed important, but don't you know that tracking your environmental impacts can also give lots of savings? For example, you're not aware that the light bulbs you're using in every floors, rooms and corners of your establishments are consuming electricity three to four times more than an eco-friendly bulb. Hence, you might have thought that your bills were quite fair, when in fact if you used LED bulbs, the power consumption along with the electricity bill you regularly pay will generally decrease. Another example, the use of regular paper materials for printing has been a tradition, but the use of recycled paper products can reduce your company's overall printing expense. You see, money is not always the factor you need to keep an eye on, there are small things you never quite expect that would create a domino effect once you started stumbling a piece.

Now that you have been clearly informed about alternative products and work-around solutions that you may imply, make a plan how to implement it. Some things are too easy to say but hard to do. Plans and goals won't be accomplished unless you make an action to achieved it. What are the things you need to change, also what are those you should keep? Don't make haste, everything should be done one step at a time, it's better to make it done for a year with such perfection than to rush things up.

Recycling is like donating without a cost. There are non profitable organizations that support several recycling programs for all types of e-waste, you just have to make a good search. With your green initiative you can even earn a few bucks through participating to such programs that promote recycling. One good example to cite are the recycling programs that most printer manufacturers offer to their customers. They shoulder the shipping expense that is necessary to collect post-consumer waste. These companies reuse their customers empty and used cartridges for recycling to produce eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges which in a way conserves natural resources. Instead of manufacturing brand new cartridges from fresh materials that comes mainly from the environment, they're utilizing post-consumer waste instead. Recycling or rather participating to such programs doesn't require any fee or amount to pay, yet you're helping to promote conservation and responsibly protecting the environment with zero cost.
 
Don't wait for your printer waste to pile up until you think of a way on how to get rid of them properly. To help you with your problem, here are some of the most eco-friendly way of disposing your used and empty cartridges where you can even earn cash.

Send it back to your respective manufacturer is one of the most and common way to properly dispose printer-post-consumer wastes. Notice that whenever you purchase replacement cartridges from branded manufacturers, they often include a special envelope inside the packaging. This indicates that the product can be returned once empty or used, and the envelopes you kept will make use by then. Mailing the cartridges back to the manufacturer requires either a box or a seal pack where you'll put the items. Additionally, most big names in the print industry such as Hewlett-Packard, Epson and Dell, these companies are willing to provide 5-10% rebates to all customers who will participate in their recycling programs. No one should worry about the shipping or mailing costs, as they will shoulder the expenses for you.

A non-profit organization that gladly accepts used printer cartridges as donations is one of the perfect choices you have. Globally, there are a few of these organizations that you should be familiar with if your planning to support such one. Local groups are also a good choice, they receive cash or monetary donations from different manufacturers for every recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges they provide.

If charitable works are none of your business, and you certainly need cash in exchange of your empty cartridges, then might as well sell it directly. Since there are non-profit organizations, of course they have a counterpart. Consider it their business, accepting certain amounts of used cartridges from people who are in need of cash. These option, unlike the drop box recycling programs of many branded manufacturers, you can't just give them  three or four cartridges. Perhaps 10 items maybe good enough, but that's the least, a box of used ink or toner cartridges is more likely sufficient. With this option, you have to wait much longer to gather enough until you reached at least their minimum requirement.

Now if you're not concern of any money, and that you just really want to get rid of your post-consumer waste, then how about you give a visit to any Office Depot or Staples branches near you. These two stores are now accepting used ink and toner tanks for your convenience. Since they'll be taking your own garbage, neither of you will give or receive any money. Just simply take the items with you, visit their store and find the bins marked with cartridge recycling logos. If you can't find any, look for a personnel or go straight to their customer service to ask for help.

If you want a bigger role to help the environment, you may consider setting up your own recycling program in your neighborhood. It isn't hard to spread the news around that you're accepting used and empty printer cartridges, then place a recycling bin just around an accessible corner where anyone get drop their items. This sounds absurd, but come to think of it, once the bin is full of plastic ink and toner tanks, you can sell it in exchange for cash. Wouldn't that be nice, helping your neighborhood get rid of their junks, while you're getting some small amount from gathering their waste?
 
Although some would not agree that using refilled printer cartridges has a lot more of disadvantages than any advantage there is that it can provide. It is still a fact that by using such products may potentially damaged a printer with several risks which might cause irreparable damages. The same thing with refilling, no matter how skilled or knowledgeable you are when it comes to refilling printer cartridges, there's no such guarantee that it'll work at least below par compared to its OEM counterparts. Unlike with using recycled cartridges, a printer is less vulnerable to damages or even far from serious problems that any user may encounter with using refilled consumables.

Refilling a single cartridge requires a tough process, hence it's difficult to produce hundreds of refills with all that having such good quality. It's not just about the knowledge to drill a hole nor pouring the liquid ink inside a cartridge that could suffice. Try to drill a plastic container, notice that there are bits of plastic that can get stuck inside the container. Pour a liquid inside a container through a small hole, no matter how gentle you pour it, air bubbles may appear. With these two issues regarding the process of refilling, these may cause uneven prints, blotches and streaks. Worse, even if the cartridge was recognized by the machine as a new replacement, do you think the ink inside would flow normally once the bits of plastic got stock on the nozzles? Plus, considering that you alone refilled the cartridge, once your experiment doesn't work out as what you expected, how can you get your money back?

Cartridge leaks, print failures due to malfunctioning cartridge, dried inks, clogged print heads, these are just some of the common issues you might possibly encounter when you use refilled cartridges. Instead of saving money, you end up wasting it by buying refill kits, plus the time you spent with its process, all went to nothing.

The good thing about opting for recycled cartridges aside from they're environment friendly and cost you less than 50% over branded cartridges. These consumables comes from a retailer, thus there's someone you can blame for any problems that the product comes with, plus you may request to return your money for a faulty cartridge. Another note worthy to mention about recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges is that, the third-party manufacturer replaces obsolete components as well as the chip from each cartridges. Hence it is not always necessary for the user to reset the machine whenever installing the cartridge. Additionally, recycled cartridges can last far better than refilled ones, and produce more printouts with better quality and yield.
 
Picture
Photo Credit : global.samsungtomorrow.com
Origami is a traditional form of art that originated from Japanese people where simple paper folding popularized and became an intricate paper folding and sculpting technique. From a simple sheet of paper, the goal is to come up with a figure by transforming a sheet through different folding patterns. But this post is not all about teaching you how to make origami designs, perhaps in time I'll make a post for one of my paper crafting and recycling projects. Although this one's still related to papers, recycled papers specifically, a 100% recyclable mono laser printer that was named as Origami.

We've been used to see printers with glossy and matte finished chassis, but we've never seen a printer from which its exterior is mainly made of recycled papers. Sounds too good to be true, but certainly it does work like any other normal laser printer. It's quite ironic to see a printer that aside from feeding paper materials, it finds stability and framework to what it mainly consumed.

Surprised as everyone else, I doubt if it's fully functional considering that printers have these buzz noises and shaky movements, could its framework stand it? But since it's too small as a compact printer, perhaps it isn't much of a big deal. The thing we should highlight about this printer are the positive impacts it could bring to the environment. Whilst I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be mass produced or will there any plan of doing such thing. The printer was designed by Min-Chul Kim, Sang-In Lee and Seung-Wook Jeong of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Creating an exterior design that is mainly made out of recycled paper products is actually not a new idea, however applying it to such machine that requires a really sturdy housing, that's the unique part of the idea. It must be a tough work to design the framework without affecting the internal components of the machine. Basically you can described it as an engine that is placed inside an intricately folded cardboard box. Hence, that's why it was called Origami, since folding, cutting and sculpting techniques were applied in order to create the exterior. Origami printer won Gold Awards in both concept and prototype category at 2013 IDEA International Conference.

Now that's truly a winning piece for us green geeks. Imagine printing using the Origami printer, loaded with recycled paper sheets and equipped with eco-friendly toner cartridges. That's three times the environmental contribution anyone could offer in terms of printing. To know more about this wonderful printer, you may visit Samsung's Official Global Blog for more details.
 
I came upon this site and found this very interesting post related to an inkjet printer that has been modified or rather the inks were replaced to be able to create such wonderful origami art works. If you haven't heard it last year about an inkjet printer that can create self-folding origami, here's a brief info for you. The printer was called Hydro-Fold, there's nothing much special with this machine and in fact it's about a hundred similar to any conventional inkjet printers in its time. The only difference it caters is the special ink mixture inside its cartridges, which makes it possible for the printer to create self-folding origami designs. 

Though you can't expect it to churn out paper doves and swans, the output was not really as intricate as real origami works but they're somewhat similar. First the user creates a design or a pattern which primarily composes lines and nothing but lines. Then after making the pattern, user send it to the printer and wait for it to spit out the print job. Once the print is done, a matter of seconds will be required for the printout to fold by itself. Contorting its own along with the printed lines on the sheet. So basically instead of you manually folding the paper, the machine puts up some magic on the sheet and let it do the rest. See the images I've provided above to learn exactly what the Hydro-Fold can do with a simple sheet of paper.


Aside from lines, grids and shapes can be printed as well using the printer and its specific ink. By replacing the regular ink with a special mixture of ink and water, plus exploring the properties of paper materials, Christophe Guberan found out that his own specific ink mixture may bend the paper's structures. Guberan was a third-year student of Product Design at the ECAL by the time he developed the Hydro-Fold printer, such a naive guy.


Again let me remind you that this printer can't make intricately folded origami designs for you like a boat or an airplane. Unless you developed a printer that has its own hands to fold it exactly the way a skilled guy makes an origami. Just check out the provided images and see what other patterns you can do and print with it. I actually find it useful for making lamp shade covers or something like that.


See how inks can be used for such different applications. With just the right approach and idea you may developed your very own special printer that can be used for such purposes other than printing text and files usually. Just like with the use of eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges filled with none earth-damaging substances. Through using these consumables, we may create a greener and more environment friendly printouts that may help on preserving natural resources and protecting our planet. 
 
Have you seen a cake or just a cupcake with printed images on top of it? Brewed coffees nowadays can be made special with a twist, through the latte art technology, a printer-like device is use to create images on the foamy surface of the latte and it is surprisingly accurate as the original image. But before this technology was discovered, image printing in cakes and similar pastries has been known for quite some years and is generally called as edible ink printing.

Around the year 2003, the collaboration of printer edible inks started. Perhaps the cake decorating industry was not satisfied with using fondants and molded icings to decorate their cakes, cookies and cupcakes, so they came up with such wonderful idea. In its early time, designs and images were printed using the edible ink onto a sheet of wafer paper, unlike today, pastry  makers are now using frosting sheets which are much efficient.

If you're wondering if it's possible for someone who's not really skilled enough for such job to be able to create his own printed image using edible inks, indeed there's a way. But you must be pretty much careful if you want to try it on your own, especially if you're just going to use a typical inkjet printer since it's not too easy to get a special printer that is solely made for edible ink printing. You might be surprised to know that anyone could actually use an inkjet printer for this, yes it is certainly possible. However, it is not generally advisable because once you use a printer to print with edible inks, you'll never get to use it for regular printing the way it was before. Plus, it requires thoroughly cleaning the machine to remove any remaining inks from the print head, as well as inside the printer itself where inks might have accumulated, build up, or splash due to excessive printing.

Again, the use of a regular printer for edible ink printing is possible, but the rate of resulting to problems or risks has a higher chance than using the appropriate machine. If you're planning to make use of it for a profitable business, probably it is worth the risk to try. Since you'll get to use the printer for good to print designs and images using edible inks. However, if you just want to experiment, spare your printer from it especially if you don't have enough knowledge of disassembling such device. Make use of it for regular printing instead, plus don't forget to opt for eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges with your printer and reduce your own carbon footprint.


 
Three dimensional printing or 3D printing has one major criticism, well maybe this one's the sentiment of a few green geeks, I don't know if you're more likely concern as well. We are very much aware that 3D printers use plastic filaments to create objects, for a while we were fascinated of what it can do and how promising this technology can be. But knowing the hazards and negative effects it might bring to the environment, would it still be worth it to commercialized such machine? Good thing before anyone else had to pull the string, researchers and developers had thought of discovering alternative materials to use for 3D printing.

Wood-based filament were introduced last year in the field of 3D printing technology. Through such material, creators were able to print wooden-like objects and stuffs that mimics the characteristics of a real wood. Honestly it's actually wood so what do you expect, right? LAYWOO-D3 was one of the revolutionized 3D printer that uses wood as an alternative printing material. Objects printed using wood filament do smell, look and exhibits texture and sturdiness like a real wood.

Metals were also used as filaments, but it's not too efficient since we all know that minerals used to create metals are mostly non-renewable. Although it's a bit fancy to have your accessories printed using a 3D printer, especially if you have the talent to design it your own.

Silicone materials are still trending and one of the latest application of silicone 3D printing is a prosthetic foot made specially for a fluffy duck. Buttercup as they called it was born with a backwards foot, and with the power of 3D printing, this small little being was given a chance to walk normally like any other ducks around.

Furthermore, artificial bones can now be created through such technology. Constructed for medical use, these artificial bones will soon inspire people with disabilities and might lead to a new discovery where researches might be able to reproduce real bones using human cells. Sounds too good to be true? Well, recently 3D printing technology has been utilized to create human-tissue like material, a breakthrough that is mainly for medical purposes for now.

From earth-damaging materials to eco-friendly filaments, aside from the aforementioned alternative filaments for 3D printers, salt, concrete and paper were also used in 3D printing. Perhaps the days of plastic filaments are slowly coming to an end. Researchers are continuously developing substitute materials which may work with 3D printing, although you'll find that most of the news recently regarding three-dimensional printing is somewhat related to medical practices. Bottom-line is, through these alternative materials they're eradicating the need for plastic substrates as filament for 3D printers. Hoping that it will ultimately lead to a new era where 3D printers are solely producing environment friendly output. Just like conventional printers such as lasers and inkjets, before we've been accustomed to cartridges that are damaging the environment, but now we can find alternative like eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges which promotes recycling and sustainability.
 
To those who would like to send their used and empty Brother printer cartridges for recycling programs specifically from their  brand manufacturer, here's a quick guide to help you. For Canon printer users, you can check out this post about Canon European Inkjet Cartridges Recycling Program and see the options that would fit you preferences. Keeping our own ways out of landfills and incinerators is a great thing to do, let's promote sustainability and make it a trend.

Brother printer supplies particularly ink and toner cartridges can also be recycled, actually there's no printer supply that can't be recycled except for the components that can no longer be reused. It's a good thing that most printer manufacturers are offering return programs and recycling services to their consumers for free. Recycling indeed helps the environment, but as little as you know, it can also developed you to become environmentally responsible.

First step is to visit their main website, browse through their site and look for the page that provides information regarding printer cartridges shipping. To make things easy, you may click this link to go directly to Brother's Environmental Programs. There are three easy steps to follow, this information is also provided from the said page but to give you a heads up of what the options might be, here they are:

PACK - This allows customers to reuse the original packaging of the item they previously purchased to wrap the used cartridge before sending it back.
PRINT - Since Brother doesn't offer a drop off bin unlike HP and other brand manufactures, you need to log in to your Brother account and request a shipping label to create a USPS SmartLabel for shipping.
SHIP - Once the shipping label was sent to your email, print it and attach the SmartLabel to your package and bring or drop it off to any U.S. Postal Service mail system.

It is ideal to use the original packaging when you first bought the cartridges, however if in case you're not able to keep it since you haven't thought of reusing it for such purposes, it's advisable to use spare plastic bags. If you don't want to seal them cause you're too lazy, you can also place them in cardboard box with the size enough to keep the cartridges intact. Then attached the label on it and rush to the nearest post office to drop it off.

Since you just sent the cartridges back to its manufacturer of course you need to buy some replacements. As a reminder, before you get too excited to re-install the new cartridges to your printer, keep the packaging in your storage room and don't disposed it. So by the next time you need to send back another batch of used cartridges, you'll now have something to use to seal the cartridges for shipping. Always remember to practice recycling or use recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges with your printer for green printing.

    Author

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



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