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.
The relationship between multinational printer manufacturers and the cartridge remanufacturing industry can be a bit cat and mouse.
The remanufacturing industry has been thrown a chunk of cheese from Hewlett Packard.
Their Renew program promotes customers using quality guaranteed remanufactured machines.
That sounds familiar!
Our Industry wants everyone to view remanufactured and compatible cartridges as equals in quality to their brand name equivalents. This is why most remanufactured cartridge suppliers have no quibble guarantees on their products.
So it's always good to see a Multinational company employ the same principals of reuse for it's consumables as the little guys. I quote:
Once toner cartridges are received at the recycling site, they are
sorted according to model before being disassembled. It is at this point
that reusable parts are cleaned and recovered. After cleaning,
reusable parts go through a rigorous inspection process that employs the
same strict quality standards applied to new parts. Parts reused in a
new toner cartridge are the charging roller, sleeve and magnetic
roller.
Toner cartridges containing recycled parts are of exactly
the same quality as those that are brand new, which is why all toner
cartridges now display a message telling consumers that the cartridge
may contain reconditioned and remoulded parts.
Owing to quality
standards, it is impossible to tell the difference between a toner
cartridge that has recycled parts and one that hasn’t.
From Canons website
That's us!...but 50% more expensive
Livechat is now available on the Greensource website.
We thought long and hard about this (Skype was the last foray into modern communications and that felt a little...grubby), but the clincher for me was that I can now eat a biscuit and provide great customer service at the same time. Yum yum!
If you have any queries about sales products and availability, or our recycling services then ping a message our way and expect a prompt reply!
Children's Hospice South West and Greensource Solutions launch our mobile phone amnesty on 1st December 2011.
This will run until 31st January 2012 and we are aiming to receive 1000 mobile phones - that's 1000 messages of support for the families who receive respite care, emergency support and end of life care at Little Bridge House, Charlton Farm and Little Harbour over Christmas and the New Year.
Participating is easy! Simply fill in the contact form on the website and you'll receive a freepost envelope to return any handsets you have.
Any mobile phone, regardless of age or condition can be accepted and will be reused or at worst recycled.
We hope that supporters of the Hospice and recyclers alike will think of us at Christmas time if they get a brand new handset from santa!
We are proud to announce our new charity partner, Above and Beyond.
This charity is the fundraising arm for all nine of Bristols central hospitals - which is close to all of our hearts here at Greensource.
They invest in projects that provide gold-standard care, and make a real difference to patients in Bristol.
Each year Above & Beyond provides approx £3 million to the hospitals - a fantastic level of support for our marvellous NHS.
Welcome on board and we look forward to collecting cartridges and mobile phones from their supporters!
Greensource Solutions has sponsored a gorilla statue for Barton Hill Primary School - local to us in Bristol.
This is part of an education and fundraising scheme that Bristol Zoo Gardens have devised as one of the celebrations for its 175th anniversary. The idea is similar in principal to other animal statues seen around the UK (pigs, lions and donkeys all spring to mind). The statues are decorated by artists and displayed to raise awareness and to fund raise.
We are really pleased to be supporting Barton Hill Primary. They are one of the closest schools to Greensource Towers and we saw a selection of designs the kids had submitted from their work in the art group. We reckon the finished Gorilla will look amazing!
It, with all the other school gorillas will be displayed in a prominent location in the Bristol community for 10 weeks during the summer of 2011.
We'll post pictures when the gorilla has been painted.
