One of the best seasons we always look forward is the season of fall. Although leaves from tree tops are falling which indicates the start of swearing sweaters, the warmth colors of withering leaves from autumn make a nice background. Imagining this view lead me to come up with a nifty art project that children of all ages will find it interesting to try. 

Of course we'll be needing recyclable materials like used printed sheets. But this craft is more fun to try if your printer experience leaks from ink cartridges. Basically you can't just repair the cartridge by covering up the hole and install it back to the printer. If that's the case, then this issue wouldn't be too serious to many users to request for an item replacement. Unless you don't have a defective ink cartridge, don't dare try to hammer or drill a hole in your printer's cartridge just so you can try this project. Honestly, that's not what I intend to promote here obviously. What I'm trying to teach you are the ways on how to reuse or recycle laser toner cartridges and inkjet cartridges.

To begin with the project, prepare the necessary materials including used paper sheets, paint brush, cleaning rags and towels. If you don't have a defective ink cartridges, don't dare try to hammer or drill a hole in your printer's ink tank, that's obviously not what I'm trying to promote here. Instead, you can use regular paints and choose any color you want for this painting activity.

Let's start by choosing the paper sheets you may use from the pile of used printed materials you gather. See if there are some sheets that doesn't have much prints or any graphics so you can make use of the other side for painting. Now here's the tricky and messy part. Since it's autumn, we'll try to make painted trees using your bare hands and fingers. To those who will be using inks from printer cartridges, it's best to wear hand gloves to protect your skin from direct contact with the ink. Prepare the ink or paint you prefer and wet the palm of your hands with it, then stamp it on the paper sheet. Make sure you can clearly see the shape and mark of your hands, if it's not too clear, repeat the process. After that, you can wash your hands to avoid getting any serious problems due to skin contact with the ink. Well, if it's just paint that you used, there's no need to worry that much.

The next step is by drawing the leaves of your tree, you can do this by dipping your fingers from the paint. Try to use colors that blend together, say, the autumn colors like orange red and yellow, or the standard CYMK colors of ink cartridges. Again, dip your fingers with paint and make thumb prints or finger prints on top of your tree covering its whole. Just don't overdo it, kids may get untidy and messy but don't spoil the fun, just guide them properly.

Once you're done with all the messy part, don't forget to clean the tools you used, as well as yourself. As a reminder, inks from printer cartridges may contain harmful chemicals that may result to skin irritation, it's not advisable to try using it without proper protection. Remember to keep your printer supplies on proper storage rooms to avoid getting defective and dry cartridges. If you experience leaks with items you bought from a particular store or retailer, make sure to double check the items on your purchase.

Some of the latest printers in the market today support energy-saving features, one good example to cite is Canon's Auto Power function which turns the printer OFF when not in use for certain period, and turns it back ON automatically once it receives a print request. There are more of these similar features to mention like Duplex feature which allows printing on both sides of a page. It doesn't simply save energy, but paper materials as well. Aside from the auto ON/OFF feature, there's also these so called low-power mode and standby mode which are also useful in many ways.

Do you know that about 7-10% of the overall electricity consumption in most office establishments goes to those machines that are often idle? Since among your employees, not all of them would be concern to turn the machine off or pull the plug off the outlet, this estimated value may become bigger in the long run.

According to ENERGY STAR standards, the Auto-Off feature of your machine should be adjusted base on the number of images/prints it can produce in a minute, basically the PPM and IPM ratings. PPM stands for pages per minute, while IPM stand for images per minute. Here's the settings you must follow:

• 0 - 10 ipm: 15 minutes (suggested auto-off time: 30 minutes)
• 11 - 20 ipm: 30 minutes (auto-off could be set to 60 minutes)
• 55 + ipm: 60 minutes (possible auto-off time of 90 minutes)

Printer require electricity to work, and that's given, each of its functionality takes different rates of energy. Say, printing takes two times more than copying, while scanning takes 3 times more than printing, take note that these are just assumptions. With regards to duplexing feature, setting the printer to print in duplex by default will cut the energy consumption of printing by almost half. Same goes with copying, single-sided copying requires more energy compared to copying two files in a single page in one run.

Low-power mode or sleep mode, and more likely similar to standby mode, is the lowest power state possible that a printer can be set. As mentioned earlier, Auto ON/OFF feature works together with this feature. Since you can't shut down the machine, you can set it to low-power mode instead.

If your printer does not support any of the said features, perhaps your machine is quite a low-end model, but there's always a way if you really intend to go green. If you can't use any feature to make it efficient, then use a component that will make it as one. Just like using remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges, you might not save energy, but it can generally reduce printing expenses much as you save from your electricity bills.

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.

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.

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.

According to a news last month, Xerox and BT (British Telecom) had a partnership which aims to reduce the firm's carbon footprint, as well as to cut the local authority's print services by up to 30%.

Amanda Abernethy, director and general manager in global document outsourcing at Xerox UK, said: 

The five-year managed print service agreement will provide the firm with all the necessary information and flaws of their print environment. Hence they will be able to determine how much wastage they're practically accumulating and how inefficient their printing process was previously. Through monitoring and proper implementations, both parties assumed to eliminate poor processes with regards to printing.

In five years, both British Telecom and Xerox will work as one to strategize a fully enhance print management system suitable to help the firm reach their goal particularly to eliminate extra expenses, reduce costs, and increase productivity and efficiency.

According to the news, the agreement includes an action to replace about 1,500 printers with only 150 units of MFP (multifunction printers) that supports energy-saving features.There's also this high-end way of printing which will be implemented, allowing staffs to send a print job to a supported printer from any floor of the company building. A receiving staff will be able to release the print job by swiping a unique identification card specifically provided for such purposes. Through this great innovation, employees and staffs will learn to practice responsible printing, eradicating excessive printing of unnecessary files, which in effect will also reduce waste and cost.

A new printing environment in a company may tend to create a buzz around, but if it's for the company's own benefits there's no reason to hold back. Xerox, aside from providing quality printing equipments, copiers, MFP, as well as consumables such as Xerox toner cartridges and ink cartridges, not to mention their solid ink products for certain printers. It is also a worldwide recognized market leader in managed print services. In fact, Xerox was part of the Leaders Quadrant in the Magic Quadrant for Managed Print Services Worldwide.

If you want to start with small steps, since getting a managed print service is certainly a hefty decision, you can at least consider the use of green printing software or switch to remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges with your machines. Remember that a goal can also be reached even with small steps.

Major occasions and celebrations such as the Independence Day,which we annually commemorate during the 4th of July, come with traditions that most of us never failed to reflect. However, sometimes we even forget to at least hold back a little with what we've been doing, for the sake of the environment. There's no wrong with celebrating a most awaited holiday especially the Independence Day, since it is one of the most festive holidays of the year. What's concerning is the negative effect of the way we celebrate it, say like using fireworks, we know that firing up colorful and sparkling lights up in the sky is a time-honored tradition, but we're also aware of the ecological impacts it might bring to the environment.

Being concern about the environment doesn't require anyone to spoil someone's pleasure, in fact we're just having fun, although we know little on how to make a gleeful atmosphere while keeping the consequences minimal. We should be responsible with our every action, whilst it doesn't mean you have to be a killjoy. The knowledge about what you're planning to do or will be doing can help minimize the possible detrimental effects of it, hence we can also say that everything is under control.

Fireworks and bonfires, both sounds fun right, however they may released harmful toxins and chemicals that tend to cause serious health problem to anyone. Come to think of it, we're not just talking about the safety of our environment here, but our body as well. Instead of inhaling harmful carbon monoxide from these two activities, why not consider gathering the whole gang, maybe your friends, family and relatives would love to have an outdoor fun. It's better to catch a baseball with a smile, than catch a lung problem and make your family worried. Play football, basketball or baseball, whatever it is that you prefer, as long as everyone is happy with the game, plus you get yourself fit with these workouts.

Picnic or party, which one is better? Actually you don't have to choose, throw them both, picnic in the morning and party at night. Just make sure that proper waste disposal is implemented on both activities. Having picnic under the nice and warm shade of trees makes a good family bonding. While night outs and dinner parties are perfect for old folks who love cocktails and wines, also don't forget to play a nice music to set the mood. Do you know that there are such organic wines produced from grapes grown without synthetic fertilizers? In the US, there are several Wine Club that offer various organic wines that may suit your palate. So if you want to fill your shelf with organic wines and make it bloom in green vines, you may subscribe to any wine-of-the-month club near you. 

Additionally, throwing a party requires an invitation, if it's not actually needed, try not to print cards or any sort of it, just invite them thru sending an sms or email, make use of technology the right way. You see, printing a lot of invitation cards requires you to spend a lot as well, special paper sheets, printer inks, and mailing services, these are some of the expense generators. Whilst you may say you're using eco-friendly toner cartridges or ink cartridges with your printer, or recycled paper products, still there's the expense. Unlike if you compose a sweet message inviting them to a dinner party or just a simple picnic, then send it to everyone you dear, wouldn't that be more ideal?

These are just few of the things you may consider on how to welcome and celebrate the Independence Day, but still at the end of the day, it's your own decision that will make a difference. Happy 4th of July America.