Have you been maintaining a low power consumption with your printer? Are you at least using a few ways to reduce the energy cost of your printer equipment? Also, do you have any idea how much energy you're wasting whenever you left that equipment on for a couple of hours without even using it, just because you forgot to turn it off? If you can't change yourself for the environment, then do the other way around, find the right equipment that can suit to your negligence or carelessness, and help save the environment by reducing your equipments energy consumption.

The Hewlett Packard Co., an industry first printer manufacturing company, had developed a certain feature that can turn your printer ON whenever you need it, and switch it OFF when you don't. What if you left your printer on all night, or you forgot to turn it off cause you need to rush to school and it was left on all day. You're not just wasting energy but also your money, from all the bills and cost you need to pay for that negligence. Let's say you're rushing an important document, you hit the print button cause it's needed in a few minutes, without noticing that the printer was not actually on. This dilemmas can be solved with HP's Auto-ON / Auto-OFF technology. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency "Customers waste up to 66% of energy related to equipment use by leaving devices on during nights and weekends."

HP stated on their website, "The Auto-On feature turns the printer to full power when a user sends a print job, pushes the power button, or opens a paper tray. After the printer has been idle for a period of time, the Auto-Off feature turns the device off. High-end HP devices turned off using HP Auto-Off Technology consume up to 26 times less energy than most printers and multifunction products on the market in traditional sleep mode, helping users save money and reduce energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions."

This special environmental feature has been included to many of their Multifunction Printers (MFP) that starter in the year of 2010. Including on the list of models is the HP LaserJet Pro P1108, Planet's Most Energy Efficient Printer, as well as their newly released Laserjet Pro MFP Printers : HP LaserJet Pro 200 M251 and HP LaserJet Pro MFP M276 that uses uses HP CF210A Black, HP CF211A Cyan, HP CF212A Yellow, and HP CF213A Magenta.

With the use of this innovative technology, we can help save the environment by reducing energy consumption and millions of carbon dioxide emission, to create a greener, more eco-friendly planet. 

As we commonly know, 3D printers uses plastic materials to be able to create an object in its real form. The process to simplify it, involves melting the plastic material and pours in onto the printers platform layer by layer until the shape of the desired object takes its form. But for most of us who support the advocacy of saving the environment, wastes management solutions, and programs that promotes plastic reduction, it ain't that perfect. This technology provides a huge contribution on our economy's advancement, but the fact that is uses plastic materials in order to create 3d objects, it becomes a potential threat for the environment.

Now it's good to know that 3D printing technology can be more eco-friendly, with the use of LAYWOO-D3. It is a material that can be use as an alternative for 3D printers instead of using plastic materials. The LAYWOO-D3 is made up of 40% recycled wood held together with polymer binding agents. Now we can enjoy the 3D revolution without the worries of negatively affecting the environment. You'll get a 3D printed object that resembles a pressboard and a texture as common as natural wood, thus making it eco-friendly.

Kai Parthy, the inventor behind this wonderful development, a 3mm FDM filament that can be used in 3D printers like RepRap and other similar printers.  This new material serves as an alternative to the plastic material used in most 3D printers, and it's a perfect way of wood recycling which is great for the environment. Though plastic materials can be recycled and used in several purposes, like producing quality eco-friendly toner cartridges from used and empty plastic printer cartridges. The innovation of wood recycling may not be new but still through the application of LAYWOO-D3 in the 3D printing technology, the future of recycling can become better. Just like when re-manufactured consumables were introduce in the market, consumers normally had doubted the product, but the consumers impression for recycled products like remanufactured toner cartridges have greatly increased in the recent years.

Using recycled materials is only good for our environment, it's also for our own benefits. There are several ways that you can do to start having a green living, or to go green, which you can find on PrintGreen and all other resources over the net. It's fairly simple to recycle any materials that you want to make use of, some were even making money out of recycling. Through the use of these recycled materials, people learn how to go green and be more concern of saving the environment. If you're asking yourself, how to go green with renewable resources, then watch the video above to see how you can simply go green with recycled eco-friendly toner cartridges. Take those used cartridges off your hands, and start participating in different recycling programs, you'll even get a price for returning those spent printer cartridges of yours. 

Technology nowadays have greatly improved, and in terms of the materials and resources that are used for production, as well as the consumables they produced, most likely they have created more eco-friendly solutions and choices both for the consumers and manufacturers. Things that we had often thought of as potentially harmful for the environment, now they have alternatives that we can opt to use whenever we wanted. Hence, consumers like us who are environmentally conscious doesn't have to abstain from exploring and enjoying the modern life for the sake of the environment.

Just like using recycled papers that are now sufficiently available in the market, with almost of the same quality when compared to paper materials that are produced from virgin pulps of trees. It doesn't only reduce the wastes we accumulate every year, it also saves power consumption and labor cost from cutting down trees and manufacturing new paper materials, plus it helps conserve our trees and other natural resources used in the initial production.

Plastic as we all know, and as we are definitely aware of the fact that these materials degrade through several affecting factors. Whereas plastic materials that are biodegradable can easily degrade through time when exposed to factors such as humidity and heat which protects the landfills from getting poison and contaminated for years. There are also corn-based plastic materials like Bio-Polymer Printer That's Composed Of Corn , which are made from fermented plant starch that are surely a renewable resource.

Reusing numerous old stuffs and materials, saves a large amount of energy consumption as compared to the initial production of new products. Recycled consumables are now commonly available in the market, aside from recycled paper materials that were mentioned, there also other office supplies like recycled eco-friendly toner cartridges or as it was categorized as a type of printer consumable called re-manufactured toner cartridges. Another earth friendly consumable related to printers, are the bio-based inks that are made from soy beans, and grape seed. Bio-based inks help in the process of paper recycling, since inks made from such resources can be easily separated from the paper during the recycling process, thus producing quality recycled paper materials.

To better improve our system, sometimes we need to try other options or walk through other paths to explore what is there beyond.

Leaking cartridges can be a troublesome for some printer users, but to a genius creative one who can easily imagine artful things, whose always looking beyond what our mere eyes can perceive, they can turn a piece of nothingness into a medium of art.

Not everyone can always have that bright idea of turning something like a piece of junk, into more useful stuffs, or recycle a used material to make something better out of it. But it's more amazing to know that there are people who often look at the bright side of everything, that they can turn even stains of printer leaks into a wonderful piece of art. Thanks to Naftali Stern, a NYC based designer and founder of The Bohmerian Blog, where i found these astonishing artwork.

Stain, 2011. A series of paintings created with leaked printer cartridge ink, by Toronto based artist Niall McClelland. I admired the idea of creating these paintings through the use of inks that leaked from a printer's cartridge. We spent a lot of money from purchasing printer accessories that are typically expensive, unless you use eco-friendly toner cartridges that's a different story, having a leaked cartridge is almost wasting your money, but the artist behind this works used his creative mind to turn a disaster into an admirable painting.

School campuses especially for colleges are going more greener over the recent years. This proves that saving the planet isn't just a single man's journey. Implementing eco-friendly rules and regulations, and applying green ideas when constructing a campus is one noble idea. It helps the students to be more exposed to green movements and acts, to help save the environment and be more aware of the earth's global situation.

The EcoDorm-Warren Wilsons College was the first college building to earn the highest rating Platinum Certification for existing buildings, the LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Designs). EcoDorm was crafted by a committee focused on meeting the priorities of energy efficiency, water conservation, healthy indoor air quality, and the use of local and highly recyclable materials.

The University of Colorado Boulder partnered with the National Renewable Energy Labs to create wind turbines that feed energy into a grid benefiting all of Colorado. Thus putting them at the top list of Sierra Clubs Greenest Colleges in the year of 2009.

The Ithaca College in New York, Dorothy D. and Roy H. Park Center School for Businesses and Sustainable Enterprise. It was the first undergraduate business school in the world to earn the Leadership in Energy & Environment Designs, platinum certification. The college building features a nearly 6,500 square foot of vegetated roof that reuses storm water runoff, reducing airborne pollutants and adding oxygen to the atmosphere.

The Evergreen State College uses their Organic farm to teach courses in agriculture. Their own harvested organic produce are served in the campus eateries, donated to local food banks, has a twice-weekly farm stand on their own campus, and some are sold through a Community Supported Agriculture program.

The University of New Hampshireor UNH, is the nations first major university to create a landfill gas-to-energy project, called the UNH's EcoLine. The University of New Hampshire uses the landfill gas as their primary fuel source, that can supply about 85% of the university's electricity and heat. 

These are just some of those several campuses that were built for the purpose of helping save the environment and strive to become one the greatest green campus. Campuses, buildings and school supplies that are going green, using environment friendly ideas for the benefit of a larger scale. We can also participate in this kind of act, by using recycled materials like eco-friendly toner cartridges for our printing needs, and make our school days more green than ever.

Every time you make a purchase, you often use plastic bags to carry your purchases, but when you get home, the question is, where does it go? Not everyone practices reusing those plastic bags, like using them as a temporary trash bag, or storage of anything they wanted. Most of the times, these plastic bags end up in the landfills after use, some where floating in the air from every streets, due to improper waste disposal, and worse it floats on the river streams which are flowing into wider bodies of water.

These material that's made for our own convenience, end up as a problem in waste management. If you think you're not paying for these bags once you shop, then think again, cause we're paying for this plastic materials as an overhead cost. The best thing that we can do is to eliminate the use of these plastic bags, and this is not impossible. If the problem can't be totally eliminated then we can still try not to make it bigger. For the sake of our environment, we can sacrifice our own convenience.

Several counties and states are implementing plastic bag ban. A few municipalities in the United States enacted a plastic bag ban, these are the city of Los Angeles and Alameda County in California. An all out plastic bag ban may seem to be an extreme approach, there are also some recycling plants in the United States that accepts plastic recycling. Consumables like printer cartridges are mainly made of plastic materials, that's why there are recycling plants established by some printer manufacturing companies, accepting returned cartridges for recycling which provides remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges. The cost of reprocessing returned printer cartridges can cost less than manufacturing new printer consumables. Thus providing less expensive eco friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges for the market consumers.

The Plastic Bag Ban is a great idea to eliminate or at least minimize the use of plastic bags, but it won't spread by itself unless you speak up for the environment, and spread the news. Let's be passionate for the environment and support this movement, besides it's not only for the environment that they put up this ban, it's also for our own good. 

The growing number of small-medium size businesses as well as organizations that uses remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges for their printer equipment, is still increasing in the recent years. It's a good sign, and good deed, to help reduce the huge amount of waste materials especially those that are composed mainly of plastic. It's practical to recycle, upcycle, reuse, re-manufacture, or whatever you call it, so long as you have the right idea and goal.

Do you know that used printer cartridges can be recycled more than 4 times? Large companies and printer manufacturing companies guaranteed that every printer cartridges that underwent the reprocessing stages, can still deliver the quality and performance like good as new. If you want your printer cartridges to be recycled and help on saving the environment, then you can participate on recycling programs that are available in your area. If you find it hard to search for the nearest one, then try those information below to help you get the right program suitable to your demand.

First, look at the packaging of your purchased cartridges, most companies nowadays are indicating their recycling programs instruction on how you can return those empty or used print cartridges. You can also find a list of their available programs for your area, through your manufacturers website. It can be easy for you to identify the best recycling program, since all the information are posted on their official websites.

Second, Laser-Tone International, located in the United States, you can contact them for pick up and delivery services of  printer cartridges that you would like to return, and take it note that it's free. Printer supplies like laser toner cartridges and ink cartridges can become eco-friendly toner cartridges, once they get recycled.

Third, Eco-Office, is a great website that provides a list of companies located near your area that accepts returning of used printer supplies. If you're lucky, you can even find a company that pays you for returning your empty or used printer cartridges. They also have a list of manufacturers and companies that provide re-manufactured printer products.

Fourth, ICRA - International Cartridge Recycling Association, they provide good and trusted information regarding printer supplies recycling.

Fifth, TonerGreen, a trusted manufacturer that provides quality eco-friendly toner cartridges, ink cartridges and all other printer supplies that you need for a very affordable price.

The demand for paper materials during printing and all other related task that requires the use of paper materials is demandingly increasing in the recent years. Although yes, we're all living in a more digital and advance world, wherein the use of emails, computers and mobile phones are more convenient when sending messages and compiling text files, the need for paper material will never fade.

Green practices on printing can be easy, if you have the goal together with the right steps, you'll significantly change the way you're used to print. Having said those factors, what if you also have the right equipment? The right printer that will help you have a more greener printing. What if you just printed the wrong file, but you don't have the option to erase the written text or images from the printer material, neither you can't go back in time. You felt regretful for the piece of paper you just wasted, if only you can washed it right. Though there can be a possible solution, paper recycling, but it takes a lot of process and time to wait, until you can have your paper back and good as new.

Worry no more, cause the Eco Printer will save you from one of your green printing problem. The main unique difference of this eco-friendly printer is that, it can erase the ink from the printed material, if you're not happy with the printout result, or you just printed the wrong file. It uses a special kind of ink, that disappears the moment it's exposed to ultraviolet radiation, and magically erases the ink from the paper. Now you don't have to worry from wasting paper materials, all you have to think about is saving the ink, cause you'll get excited for sure and try printing and erasing with this printer all over again.

You'll definitely save a lot of trees from using the Eco Printer, and you also extend the life cycle of the paper material you're using whenever you print. Still if you don't need a hard copy of the file, keep it in your emails to save inks and paper materials, so whenever you need to access the file, just log in with your email and you can view it, saving you much from wasting inks and papers. You can also try using eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges for your printer equipment, if you don't have this kind of printer, cause bringing it to the masses will surely be not easy.

With the use of this printer, purchasing printer consumables can be a thing of the past. Since we can't afford to have of this printer, we can still practice green printing with the use of recycled paper materials, minimizing the amount of files we print, and by using remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges, that can give us a lot of savings.

When we buy stuffs, materials, and consumables that we need, there's a certain reason why we need to purchase those. At times we say, i shouldn't bought this, but believe unless there's someone who provoke you of buying that stuff, there's no one to blame but you alone. We get enticed, and often get lured with stuff that draws our attention, and end up buying it. Before we can just let it be, but gone are those days, cause money are more valuable nowadays, more valuable than before. Spending it wisely is a matter that most consumers are being more concern.

Purchasing anything comes with a purpose or a reason, and one good reason is to become environmentally concern. You purchase consumable materials that are nature friendly, that's just one of the good reasons. What's good about purchasing eco-friendly stuff is that they're good for the environment, plus you get a lot more savings. You spend your money wisely, and at the same time, you help the environment, isn't that good enough. We want to get more from our hard earned money and hence,we opt for the most affordable materials, But factors such as affordability is just a small part of the whole, you can get cost-effective products, but can they provide quality performance, that's the question.

Let's use an example to know that there are products out there wherein affordability correlates with quality. Recycled materials are less expensive, that's right, however there are so many thugs around the market that uses this tag to trick consumers. Recycled materials are somehow more durable, while others since they're cheaper, they also provide less, such as recycled papers, you'll notice that they're more thinner as compared to paper materials that are made from fresh tree pulps. But I'm sure once you know this fact that 14 millions of trees are cut down and used just to provide our annual need for paper materials, you'll appreciate even the thinnest recycled paper available.

Paying half the price of what you usually spent from purchasing the non-recycled materials, is seriously a big thing for most consumers nowadays. The same idea applies to re-manufactured products, just like the recycled materials. They provide cost-effective alternative solutions to our mounting daily expenses. Though there are still doubtful of the term 're-manufactured', having issues with the products quality, a few studies prove their performance and shut down the doubtful issues concerning re-manufactured products.

The perception about re-manufactured products were getting better from the recent years. Soon, remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges will not just be consider as an alternative. Knowing that they can't just provide quality output, they also produce almost the same amount of printouts as the OEM products from big name companies like HP, Canon, Epson, Brother and Lexmark toner cartridges. Now consumers won't hesitate to purchase recycled products, as well as re-manufactured consumables.