Going Green with Printing

Hitting ctrl+P or however you decide to output your screen's contents onto paper can be such an easy thing to do. With powerful and swift network printing it can be accomplished without much thought; but printing, even with the most ecofriendly printers is a power and resource hungry process and should be given just a little more thought.

So here are a few possibilities to consider in your office or home to minimise waste and, in doing so, make a positive contribution to the environment; or at least diminish your negative affect:

• First consider the actual documents you print up. Do you really need to print them, try to think each time before you click on the print icon and see if there is an alternative.
• If you do have to print up a document, do you really need to make multiple copies for distribution, see if you can make one copy and hand it around, this is also a more social way of sharing information.
• To encourage your colleagues or business contacts to do the same add a 'think before you print' icon to your email signatures, remember we must all work together for the environment and each additional person made aware of their affects will further encourage others to do the same.
• If you must print, try to print on both sides of the paper, it is not hard to see how this will cut down the amount of paper you use. Average office printing costs exceed £2000 annually on paper alone so you will be making a cash saving also.
• If, indeed, you are forced to make heavy use of a printer, have a look at some of our suggestions below:

There are many printer manufacturers who have taken great care in reducing emissions waste from their printers.:

Canon for example have devised "On-Demand Fixing Technology " which reduces energy consumption by up to 75%. This, coupled with their "Energy-saving Fine Toner (EF Toner)" further decrease energy waste.Canon Printers also were the Pioneers, as early as 1990 to initiate a toner cartridge recycling program.

Brother also display a keen commitment to environmental policies; both within its products and in its working practices; they have achieved the coveted ISO 14001:2004 standard for environmental management whilst being the first (and only) printer manufacturer to win the TCO '99 standard environmental accreditation on a printer.

Samsung have their own programme, the S.T.A.R programme, which stands for Samsung Takeback and Recycling Programme and cite the following in their website :"Samsung Electronics is firmly established as a global company and is fulfilling its concomitant obligations by engaging in diverse activities based on a “product environment” strategy. The Company’s ability to develop environment friendly printers continues to strengthen; a global recycling system is being established and the environment friendly corporate image is improving. The Company’s goal is to provide consumers with products that are the most environment friendly.

I could go on, the list above is by no means exhaustive, and is intended as a small sample of printer manufacturers, but it is clear that the major manufacturers are striving to improve their environmental printing policies, indeed Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, Konica, Minolta, Kyocera, Lexmark, OKI, Xerox and Samsung all demonstrate a commitment to the environment.

So if you use a printer at work, look into the environmental aspects of your processes, try to reduce waste and emissions, try to think green every now and then and you will soon find that there are many other areas in life where you can make a difference.

In resourcing this article I am indebted to Robert Camp for advice on the environment and to Ameiva who provided me with a wealth of information on economical printing.