NanoPrint offers eco-friendly, green printing services. When you choose our online printing services, you are not only saving money, you're saving the environment. NanoPrint is an eco-friendly printing company, and we offer a choice of recycled paper stocks and vibrant soy-based inks.
In a general office, printing is one of the main environmental impacts associated with day-to-day operations. It is also one of the easiest environmental impacts to tackle that will deliver immediate environmental benefits as well as costs savings. This article provides practical green printing tips and advice.
TThe easiest way to reduce paper usage is using double-sided printing. This can halve your paper consumption overnight. Double sided printing can be setup as a default setting on the printer or a user can stipulate in the printing dialog box on their computer that they would like all printing to be double-side. If your printer does not have double-sided functionality it is possible to retrofit a printing tray that supports the functionality. The investment cost will be paid back relatively quickly from savings in paper. Some older printers cannot be retrofitted and therefore the only option is to invest in a new printer. If you take the decision to invest in a new printer you should source a verified waste collector who can recycle your old printer, or indeed find a charity that would benefit from receiving a 2nd-hand printer.
Other ways to reduce paper use include investing in ‘follow-me’ printing technology which requires uses to activate their printing request at the printer. Recent research suggests that 30% of printing requests are never collected at the printer and hence become waste immediately. ‘Follow me’ printing technology is relatively cheap to install and will definitely save paper from print jobs that are never collected by the user who sent the printing command.
Printers consume a lot of energy when running. Reducing the amount of printing required will reduce your energy consumption and hence help with reducing your carbon footprint and saving on electricity costs.
Most modern printers have energy saving settings which allow users to setup their printer to go into a ‘deep sleep’ mode when not in use. Check whether your printer has the right settings and if not get the printer manual out and setup the energy saving parameters to suit your organisation. A good benchmark is that a printer should go into sleep mode after 15 minutes of non-use.
Ink and toner are critical components in the printing process – they are also highly hazardous. By reducing the amount one prints, one can also reduce the amount of ink and toner used. Nonetheless, one cannot prevent using ink and toner if one needs to print.
To reduce the impact from ink and toner we suggest making good purchasing decisions and ensuring that waste ink and toner cartridges are properly disposed of. The former requires purchasing inks and toners that are vegetable based. Nowadays, most inks and toners are vegetable based but it is worth checking the environmental credentials of your ink and toner manufacturer.
Disposal of ink and toners should be conducted by a verified waste collector and properly recycled. Most ink and toner cartridges can be recycled. Again, check with your stationery supplier or ink / toner manufacturer on their recyclability characteristics
