It is not difficult to make your home or office printing more environmentally friendly. All you need to do is develop some earth-friendly habits. Here are six easy steps you can take for earth-friendly printing this year.

Recycle your ink cartridges. When ink cartridges end up in landfills, the leftover ink residue leaches volatile organic chemicals (VOC’s) into the surrounding environment. These chemicals can cause cancer and birth defects in those who are exposed. In addition, the engineering-grade polymers used in cartridge plastic take about 1,000 years to decompose. Over 65 million ink cartridges are used each year in the U.K., and unfortunately 85% of them end up in landfills.

You can keep yours out of landfills longer by recycling your ink cartridges. Many companies will provide instructions for how to do this on the cartridge packaging. In addition, some recycling nonprofits will recycle your ink cartridges for free. Some provide free shipping envelopes or pick up your cartridges for you. Nonprofits in the U.K. that offer these services include Cartridges4Charity Action Aid Recycling and the Recycling Appeal.

Use fewer colours. The less ink you use on your printed materials, the less ink will eventually wind up in landfills. As much as possible, print in black ink or use simple two-tone graphics. This isn’t just good for the environment; it’s also good for your wallet.

Get the most out of your ink. Printer companies do the best they can to try to get you to buy more ink. This hurts both your budget and the environment. Conserve ink as much as possible by changing your cartridges only when your ink really is gone-not just when your printer tells you you’re running low. If you’re planning on buying a printer, choose one with individual cartridges instead of all-in-one, so you don’t have to replace every colour when one runs low. Whenever possible, print in Draft mode and in black ink.

Use recycled paper. In the U.K., most paper production comes from sustainable forests-forests that are planted, harvested, and replanted for the express purpose of paper production, rather than wild forests clear-cut by paper companies. However, these sustainable forests are usually uniform stands of fast-growing softwoods. Companies cialis for daily use cut down slow-growing, diverse hardwood forests to plant these trees, but they can’t support the area’s ecosystem as well-so they’re still not environmentally ideal. In addition, the paper manufacturing and bleaching process releases toxins into the air and groundwater.

You can help by using less new paper and more recycled paper. Many people think recycled paper is discoloured, spotted, and generally lower in quality than new; this isn’t true. Quality recycled paper looks indistinguishable from new, and it’s not much more expensive.

Print on both sides. A great deal of paper is wasted when people print on only one side of a document. If your printer has a duplex setting, use it whenever possible. If not, it’s still feasible to print one page at a time Cialis and reload the page to print on the other side-although it’s time consuming for longer documents. At the very least, choose a printer with a duplex setting next time you’re shopping for printers. Brand Levitra In addition, instead of throwing out waste paper with only one side printed, save it as scrap paper.

Print less. Printing less saves both paper and ink. Whenever possible, limit your printing. Send email instead of hardcopy mail when you can, and avoid printing out emails for your records-instead, back them up electronically. Instead of sending reports, white papers, and longer documents in hard copy form, send them in .PDF email attachments when you can. When you do print, shrink your margins to allow more words on each page.

Many people think that being environmentally friendly is expensive and inconvenient. This is not usually true. Most of these steps will save you money as well as benefit the planet, and they’re not difficult to do. Integrate these simple habits into your normal office procedure, and your office is sure to be more ecologically friendly this year.

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Category: Computers/Hardware
Keywords: ink,printer