Lexmark truly is a green industry, from remanufactured or rather recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges production down to environment friendly product packaging. Even used paper materials found their second life in the manufacturing process of Lexmark cartridges packaging.

An idea that results to a positive difference wherein both the company as well as the environment are benefiting. On the company's side, transporting and delivery process became more safe and less fragile. You see there's always a possible way to reuse and recycle our own accumulated waste.

Since Lexmark is a printer manufacturing company, it is given that to check their products quality, such tests are implemented. In these several quality test include print testing, which then results to accumulating paper waste materials. To guarantee the performance and detect any problems, the company must imply these evaluation to make sure that every piece of equipment and printer consumable are working properly before it gets in the market.

But instead of burning or throwing away their paper waste, Lexmark came up with a noble idea to recycle their own waste and reuse it for packaging purposes. All the used test pages are transported to the company's package manufacturing facility, from there it undergo recycling process.

Tom Gilinski, Lexmark's Manager of Packaging Engineering stated :
        “Manufacturing is required to run test pages. We are required to develop packaging for these cartridges. The result – a         new process using our own waste paper converted to new molded packaging cushions.”

This project which was developed by a team from Lexmark, results to an outstanding ecological benefits. Through using recycled materials, it became a win-win situation for the company and also for the environment. And if you also want to have a better and greener printing practices and solution, then opt for only what's good for the environment. These include recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges, just like how lexmark toner cartridges are manufactured and delivered in a green way.

Saving is different from turning green, but you can have them both by becoming green at home or at the office which leads to a lot of savings. Being responsible for the environment while keeping your self focus on greener ways can be a potential factor to save money and reduce accumulated waste. How can you switch your working environment to become greener, and where should you start? I may not be the best when it comes to providing ideas that can help you go green, but at least I'm effectively conveying its purpose and means.

Start lowering energy consumption
Any office requires double or even triple power supply over a typical house. It needs at least 24 hours of continuous energy flow to sustain units that need to be working all day long. Computers, lights, office appliances, printers and all equipments that simultaneously sip energy from the outlets. One way to resolved this is by using a power strip, you can group all the equipments that works similarly into a single power strip. So whenever these units are not needed, you can switch off the power strip with just a click of a button.

Limit office supplies
You may not notice, but believe me there are employees taking supplies from the office bringing them home. If you'll try to limit their resources, they will gradually learn to save on using what's available unless they can provide extra for their own. It is also helpful to make your employees responsible on saving materials. Just like with paper usage, if there's a limited pack of paper materials reserved for printing, tendency is your employees will only print what's important and definitely required. This will result to reducing office supply cost as well as paper waste in the office.

Turn waste into money
There are several materials which you assumed as waste wherein actually you can use them to make money. One good example are the printer cartridges. Any office does have a printer, I mean who doesn't it's a necessity, thus you accumulate empty or used printer cartridges. Do you know that there are several organizations and programs that are so much willing to accept those you consider wastes, and they can even pay you for surrendering those. Moreover, if you want to save more on your overall printer cost, then opt for eco-friendly toner cartridges or ink cartridges which are truly a great savings provider.

Make a switch
If you can replace some of your office equipments or any materials that you think consumes much energy and cost, then it would be better to invest on machines that are energy efficient and requires a low maintenance cost. It does need money to invest on these office supplies and equipments, but in the long run you'll it suitable that you made a switch. Go GREEN your office now.

Have you tried using recycled paper materials in your office for printing purposes? Or have you tried recycling used printouts and other paper materials? If you haven't tried doing so, or have no plan of doing such thing, well reading this post would be better for you.

Do you know that when you sum up all the forests in the world, about 80% of it had been logged? According to statistics, 40% of these trees from logging goes to paper manufacturing process, while the other half falls on some businesses that require wood as raw materials. In addition, the industry of paper materials is considered as the fifth largest consumer of energy.

So for every sheet of paper you used or wasted, you also dwindle an amount of energy and natural material. Likewise, the more you re-used or recycled papers, the better you utilize and extend the worth of every wood and energy consumed in the production of these materials.

Paperless printing and eco-friendly printing practices have been promoted worldwide, and today there are several campaigns and organizations supporting the said movement. Imagine, even from its production, hazards and pollution are emitted during the process, which results in severe destruction of the ozone layer. Also, the notable amount of waste we accumulate annually is definitely alarming. Do you think the future generations would still have enough space to build their self a home if right now we require more landfills to dump our waste.

What could be the benefits of using recycled paper materials? First, using re-process papers is cost effective, and second, it is indeed beneficial for the environment. A wise consumer would opt for products that give savings without compromising the quality. Companies would also benefit from using such materials, it can cut down their office supplies cost by simply using recycled paper products. Printing in the office doesn't always require high-grade paper materials since most of the time employees are just printing drafts and initial reports.

To save more on your office printing expense, equipped your printers with eco-friendly toner cartridges or ink cartridges. These consumables are also made from recycled components that came from customers who returned used and empty cartridges. Isn't it nice, to save money while responsibly helping the environment. Well here's another that will boost you more to switch on usng recycled paper materials and printer consumables.

According to Waste Watch,
            "Every ton of 100% recycled paper bought in place of virgin fiber paper, about 30,000 liters of water and 3000-4000              kwh of electricity are saved."

Let's all promote paperless printing as well as the campaign on using recycled paper materials. So we can reduce the need to cut trees, and diminish paper waste dumped in the landfills. Recycling is one of the great solution to help us save the environment and also our pockets.

How can we actually say that a product is indeed Eco-friendly? Products claiming they're hundred percent made from recycled organics and materials, yet they look bulky with those plastic wrappers and packaging. Are they really Eco-friendly? Maybe if we look at it this way, such that the product was actually a recycled matter and soon it will decompose once reaching their limit. But what are going to do with those plastic wrappers and packages, unless they're also decomposable or organic, they'll soon bring harm to the environment if not properly dispose.

Styrofoam and plastic packaging are not environment-friendly, thus if you try to purchase a product with a mark that says '100% made from recycled materials', yet it was packed in bubble wraps or Styrofoam, that's a bit absurd. They're promoting green products, but they still incorporate non-degradable materials into the packaging. Thus it makes sense, that recycled consumables with less packaging are more Eco-friendly.

Paper supplies that are used for printing, recycled or not, are necessities in most offices. If you would prefer to purchase recycled paper sheets, then it is much better not only for your office environment but also for the environment. What makes it a good choice for your office? First they are cost-efficient, thus saving you some good bucks and cutting down your office supplies cost, and second, you promote green printing practices not only to yourself but extending the benefits of it to all your employees.

Shopping for your weekly or monthly groceries, whatever you prefer, is one of the factors why you get tons of plastic bags in your house, and mind you, not all recycling plants and organizations accept every kind of plastic waste. Thus, it leaves you with no other choice but to discard all those waste, which then goes to the landfills. So what makes you a green and better shopper? Bring your own reusable bags, a big one so you jammed everything you need to buy from the store. Avoid purchasing consumables and products in plastic wrappers, unless you're fond of collecting waste. What's good about products with less packaging is the fact that you don't have to read any tiny-font descriptions of what is it, just look at it.

Printer's, everyone own a printer buddy at home, offices or business environments, it became a necessity equipment actually. Inks and toners, let's set them aside, as there's still no solid solution that can replace those chemicals to create greener printouts. But, printer cartridges can be recycled, even the major brands and big names in the print industry accept returned cartridges to undergo recycling process. Although the packaging is still the same, there are some manufacturers working on providing a better packaging or at least less packaging if they will allow. These eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges are made from empty and used printer consumables, refurbished and recycled to re-use.

Manufacturers can do a lot of things and a way better solution to their products packaging. It's just that they use it for promotional purposes, imprinting brand names, logo and stuffs like that into the box and wrappers. What could be the use of a green eco-friendly product, if it's inside a harmful packaging, it's like eating junk food to suffice your hunger but you don't get nutritional value.

Going green has no limit or no extent, small communities or big companies, they are all turning into a greener environment and practices. Several industries nowadays have already switched to a better environmental friendly manufacturing and services. Since there are several individuals and small organizations that started it all, why not those big names in the industry must not follow.

Supporting the voluntary agreement by the biggest printer manufacturers in the printing industry, the European Commission has accepted to GO GREEN in their industry. They favored the agreement to set a target on greatly reducing the EU industry's carbon footprint emission in terms of printing and copying. Promoting proper recycling of reusable devices and printer consumables such as ink and toner cartridges, as well as improving energy efficiency of such printing devices, ink, toner and paper usage/consumption.

The said major manufacturers complied to commit on promoting and bolster to encourage the utilization of "Duplex" (double-sided) printing as well as "N-up" (several pages per sheet) printing in order to cut down the use of paper materials.

The full list of printer manufacturers that will sign up with the voluntary agreement are as follows:

Brother                            Konica Minolta                    Okidata                    Toshiba
Canon                              Kyocera                              Panasonic                Xerox
Dell                                  Mita                                    Ricoh
Epson Europe                  Lexmark                             Samsung
Hewlett-Packard              Murata Machinery              Sharp

The Commission said:
        "The voluntary agreement has undergone a thorough impact assessment and we have concluded that it could be                 considered equivalent to binding regulations adopted under the EU’s 2009 Ecodesign Directive."

While William Dazy, the Chairman of EuroVAprint, said :
        “We welcome the Commission’s endorsement of our voluntary agreement in the context of the Ecodesign Directive,   
         We are looking forward to further cooperation with the EU institutions in this area.”

The listed big names in the printing industry that participated in the said agreement have set up the "EuroVAPrint Organization", this will check and evaluate each companies effort towards a greener industry. Thus, we may expect a great improvement in their operations and productions in terms of being environmentally conscious. We should give credit to those printer manufacturers that had been accepting printer cartridges recycling for such a long time even before this agreement came out. Eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges, as well as recycled printer paper materials will certainly help on reducing carbon footprint and negative impacts that the print industry have brought from the past years.

Since the emergence of 3D printing technology, various products created through the said technology were introduced in the market. Conventional manufacturing alone will not be enough to produce this new innovations, and without 3D printing, there are only small chances to be considered and it wouldn't suffice to produce what 3D printing can actually made in just a small span of time.

Aside from the considerably small fraction of time that 3D printing takes in order to create an actual output. It can also be used to generate something that is made from eco-friendly materials. In addition to these unbelievable facts, there are researches who have been working on such plan to print an entire frame of a house in just a matter of day. It may sound absurd and unbelievable, but with Janjaap Ruijssenaars, principal of Universe Architecture based in Amsterdam, building the world's first 3D-printed house is something reachable.

The concept includes printing out several pieces of 6x9 meters sized frame for the house using the D-Shape 3D printer, to assemble a Mobius strip-shaped house structure. The frame will be using sand and binder, which will be filled or coated with concrete and fiberclass to be able to create a sturdy, flexible and solid two-story building.

Ruijssenaars explained the design's origin as, "It was a house in Ireland, the location on the coast is so beautiful that we want the design to reflect the nature." A landscape with an endless, no beginning neither no end design of a house, that's simply how someone would describe this incredible structure. A house that reflects the nature, quite interesting and also intriguing. Although it's called a house, it seems that this two-story structure is just too open literally to live there. But you can still furnish it with couch and seats that suits the concept and designed of the house.

It was the collaboration of these two genius people, Janjaap Ruijssenaars and Rinus Roelofs, an artist and mathematician, with the intention to create a continuous movement through a residential space and out onto the surrounding landscape. The initial plan to build a house was actually to designed it for the biennial European architecture competition, and it is expected to be completed in 2014.

Though it seems enjoyable to have a rest house like this, with the touch of technology and environment friendliness, this concept will soon become a hit. Since not everyone can't afford to have one of this, and that's given, you can instead purchase or utilize house products that features both the latest functionality and being environment friendly, like LED lights, or even eco-friendly toner cartridges and recycled papers for your printing needs.

Technology, aside from the fact that it comes with some environmental impacts, it also brought some innovations that led to a few advantages. One of which is the traditional way of using paper materials to keep a copy of files or documents, we then changed it and adapt to the industry advancement through utilizing mobile devices like smartphones and tablets to store our files and documents. Thus, we reduce the amount of paper used to store information and files.

Though having said that, it doesn't mean we completely eliminate the use and purpose of paper materials in the digital world. In fact, intelliPaper, a business company that provides products in the data sharing consumer industry, has found a brilliant and extremely surprising way of transforming a tiny piece of paper into a fully functional storage device, specifically the one we called USB drives. One main reason they came up with this invention is cut down the huge waves of e-waste which as we all know, heading to the landfills and contaminates the surrounding environment.

If you're wondering how this clever piece of USB technology was developed then here's how, intelliPaper embedded a silicon chip between the layers of paper, laminate those layers, then printed conductive USB traces onto the paper which connect to the main chip. Surprisingly and merely unbelievable, the finished paper USB drive can be embedded into any type of paper product. Although there are micro USB drives like the ones from Verbatim, Buffalo, SanDisk and many more, one thing you should know is that, they're are typically coated of plastic.

When the product reached the end of its useful life, just pull out the electronic strip inside and then you can just tossed the paper material right into the bin. Using this device, one thing is for sure, you maximize the usefulness of the paper material you utilize from using it. We've been trying to come up with more ways to reduce our paper usage, and this invention will definitely top the list. You can also practice paper less printing to save on your regular printing expense, or try using eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges for your printer to save more.

Before we've featured the Eco Printer, an environmental friendly printer wherein you can erase the ink from the printer material by exposing it on a special UV light, then afterwards you can use the paper sheet again for more printing. Through this technology users can be able to save on their paper usage whenever printing. The only drawback is that it uses a special type of ink that is somehow different from conventional inks that are used in inkjet printers.

Now as I've been browsing the net for some cool green stuffs to offer for my readers, I've stumbled from this picture with a description that says "Eco Printer". Since it's eco-friendly and techie which I'm sure green-geeks would love to hear more about it, here's another printer that seems to be based on previous post about the Eco Printer, though this one is named as the "Re-Printer".

Disappearing ink is something not too common either not too surprising, since I've already read a few articles regarding the science behind this amazing machines. Toshiba even made a multifunction printer named "Loops" which will be available next year 2013 in Japan by mid month of February while for the other countries it will be out in the market with a different name in the month of May.

The Re-Printer as the name itself explains its purpose, can produce printouts of different files and documents whether coloured or black, then once you're done with the hard copy and you need to use the paper once more, just use a UV light to erase the text or images that is printed on the paper material. It's more of like you're printing a temporary file on the paper material wherein you can erase it afterwards once you're not satisfied with the output or you don't need the printout anymore. Sounds like having a rewritable CD isn't it? The only difference is that you're utilizing a paper material instead of a compact disk.

Paper recycling could never been this easy and fun, re-using the paper sheet for more printing can really save you a lot from your paper usage and printing expense. Though I'm not sure how much would it cost you to buy the special ink once your printer runs out of it. Unlike when you're using conventional printers either laser of inkjet type, you have the option to choose from OEM, compatible or my most favorable printer consumables the eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges which are really cost efficient.

Maximizing the use of paper materials over the additional expense from purchasing a special type of ink is fairly a good trade-off. Though are many ways from which you can recycled paper materials aside from using a printer that comes with an erasable ink. But if you're really keeping up on your New Year's resolution to paperless printing, then I suggest you keep your iPad or laptop always at your side to access all those important files you need.

Christmas is such a fun and exciting holiday to look forward to, we don't even notice the remaining days and nights with all the preparations, decorations and shopping that we need to do before it dwells in every houses. But before we go crazy from purchasing toys and goodies for your family, friends and relatives, first we need to make sure that the spirit and atmosphere of Christmas can be seen and perceive with all the decorations we made.

Of course, when it comes to decorations PrintGreen will always be one of the best provider of green ways to make all your holidays greener and more environment friendly to celebrate. Previously on my post Green Ways To Make Christmas Trees, we had the idea of making our own christmas trees from real organic plants that can be grown indoor, as well as making a Christmas tree that is made out of cardboard paper materials. Now, we'll be focusing on making small Christmas tree centerpieces but still the green way.

First you need to provide paper materials such as : cardboard or any paper board and used magazines (if you want to use newspapers make sure to get the colorful pages at least). For the tools you need to bring scissors, glue and hand gloves.

To get started, first you need to make a cone using the paper board which will serve as the tree frame. For the cone shape template, you may search it online or create your own if you have the idea on how to make one, circumference may vary depending on your preferences. Once you're done with the tree frame, next would be making the cut outs from those magazine pages. From this part, everything depends on your choice since it's just cutting out small pieces of paper, any shape will do whatever you want. These cut outs will then be paste on the tree frame starting from the bottom until you reach the top of the frame. Now for the base, just cut a circle from the cardboard you provided, slightly larger from the circumference of your tree frame.

Once you're done with all the pasting and gluing, just set it aside and let it rest until all the glues dried out. You can also add glitters and embellishments on your very own centerpiece to make it more fancy and lively. Create as many of these as you want, the more the better, you can even send it as a gift to your friends so they can also have a bit of your creative Christmas projects.

Aside from creating paper made Christmas tree centerpieces, you can also recycle your old toys and small stuffs and use it as your Christmas tree's decorations, instead of the typical flowers and balls you use year after year. Try recycling and upcycling your office supplies in the office and make a Christmas inspired decorations, how about piling up those eco-friendly printer cartridges like a lego and make an office inspired Christmas tree out of it, unique isn't it.

If one your principles is "No to wasting paper materials", then you'll surely love this 3D printer. Mcor Technologies, one of the well known developers when it comes to three dimensional printer equipment, has unveiled a new model of 3D printer called the "Iris". Back in 2008, the Matrix 3D printer which was also developed by Mcor Technologies, created a buzz in the printing industry by creating 3D models made from a stack of regular old copier paper.

By unveiling a new model, new innovation comes along, with Iris, colors and variations are now brought into your creations. The mechanism from the original Matrix still remains, this new model slices and glues layer after layer of paper together to exquisitely build up a three dimensional model of an object. But like I've said, color is now introduce with the new model, through an additional process the final model will have a visible design and color.

What concerns me more is it's capability of using paper materials instead of plastic polymers in order to create three dimensional models. You see, paper waste is still a problem we should be concern of, the amount of paper materials we used is somewhat double the size of the paper products being produced. Not to mention that a huge percentage of these old and used papers are improperly disposed. Printed papers as an example are one of the great contributors of paper wastes, those newspapers, magazines, books, and all other sorts of paper material that are not being reused.

Paper recycling is a great activity, that helps reduce the amount of paper materials that end up in the landfills and incinerators. Also when practicing green printing, it's a good habit or rather a nice way to avoid printing copies of unnecessary files that you can still save as a soft copy. And don't forget to use eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges for your printer, not only to save money but also to help save the environment.