Friday, 05 October 2012
Make Your Office Greener and Reduce Your Colour Printing Costs
Have you noticed that when you make life changes to reduce your impact on the environment, it often takes more work? Whether it’s rinsing glass jars and plastic tubs before recycling, remembering your reusable shopping bags, hang-drying your clothes, riding your bike rather than driving…it all takes more time and effort!
Thankfully, there are people willing to trade convenience for more environmental behaviors, but we could use more. Out of (perceived) necessity, convenience often rules our busy lives. Are there any ways to simplify AND be greener? When it comes to printing, the answer is YES!
Solid Ink printers and multifunction printers (MFPs) use cartridge-free ink sticks that are incredibly easy to load. Just insert the uniquely-shaped stick into the correct color slot and you’re done. And you can top off the ink at any time to ensure you don’t run out during a large print job. No big, bulky print cartridges, or fusers, fuser oil or imaging units found in a typical color laser printer. Besides Solid Ink sticks the only other replaceable item is a maintenance roller/cleaning unit, which lasts for tens of thousands of pages and only needs to be replaced a few times throughout the life of your device.
Ok, that explains how life gets easier, but what about greener? Well, Solid Ink printers and MFPs produce 90% less printing waste than comparable laser products due to their cartridge-free design. And their compact packaging means fewer delivery trucks on the road.
Think globally. Act locally. Solid Ink packaging is made from post-consumer waste that can be recycled locally where options are available.
Additional ways Solid Ink products reduce environmental impact are that they’re ENERGY STAR qualified, they produce the same vibrant images on recycled paper as on high-quality paper, and the desktop printers and MFPs have a smaller carbon footprint over their entire lifecycle.
Back to the easy side of things, the new Xerox ColorQube 8700 and ColorQube 8900 boast a large colorful touch-screen user-interface that simplifies their many features, and even provides helpful videos. There’s a built-in “convenience stapler”, as well as a print-from/scan-to USB input right on front of the user interface. In addition, all customers who are connected to a Xerox solid ink printer or MFP can download GreenPrint software for free, which avoids the printing of unwanted pages.
PrinterWorks West has been servicing and supplying solid ink print technology for over ten years in Alberta and has recently included the ColorQube 8900 in its Managed Print Services Program. The reliably, features and colour costs made it stand out from other MFP’s from HP and Lexmark.
Finally, something that is easier and greener.