The true cost of home printing

The cost of ink cartridges for desktop printers has been a feature in the news for many years - printer ink costs per gram than gold / fine champagne?!?

There is no doubt it is an expensive habit that many of us indulge in.

The Guardian have run an interesting feature which has a focus on how the oem manufacturers (the companies who make the printers and "genuine" ink cartridges) have reduced the amount of ink in cartridges over time to get more bang from their buck.
Counter arguments ensue - some of which have validity, but ultimately it's a case of market forces never being satisfied.

Greensource has some great suggestions to minimise your home printing costs:

• Use remanufactured cartridges. These are generally a minimum of 30% cheaper than their brand name equivalents. Unsure or unhappy with the quality? Any supplier worth their salt these days will offer a no quibble guarantee on remanufactured products so choose where you buy from with that in mind.
• Avoid colour printing at home. Many online photo services offer fantastic deals these days. This is much cheaper than printing at home (remember you need ink and photo paper), but does sacrifice the instant gratification. The vast majority of other printing people do is documents isn't it? Is it really necessary to have your e-ticket in colour.
• Buy a mono laser printer. Straight away, a cartridge prints thousands of copies rather than hundreds and the cost per cartridge can be comparable with oem inks, so big savings to be made.
• Take advantage of the work place! I think we all understand what I'm talking about;-)

I'd also like to add a footnote about cartridge recycling. Greensource was founded to raise funds for charity through the collection of empty printer cartridges. This activity fuelled the cartridge remanufacturing industry. 
However a paradox exists. Quality control measures mean that the cartridge remanufacturing sector rarely reuses anything other than an empty brand name cartridge. Despite this, the arguments for using remanufactured cartridges most convincing as it benefits the cost you pay, quality is guaranteed and the environment has fewer resources taken from it.