As things are turning green again outdoors, I’d like to discuss how you can make things a bit “Greener” inside. I’m not talking about transplanting your plants and cuttings indoors, but rather how you can leave a Greener footprint around the office by using energy-efficient imaging and printing (I&P) devices in ways that save the most resources. I briefly touched on this subject in last week’s blog, “HP LaserJet Print Speeds and Instant-on Technology”, and would like to further explore how this fuser technology reduces energy usage and other Green printing aspects of growing importance.
We’re all aware that energy costs are rising, worldwide. Unless you’re the Facilities Manager for a very large organization, you might not have considered the electricity used in operating your I&P devices. For example, if you compare the energy costs for the HP LaserJet P2015 Printer with similar products from Dell, Samsung, Brother and Lexmark, you’ll find that these competitive devices average $17.32 in energy costs per year (assuming 10 cents per kilowatt-hour (kW)) to operate. Under similar operating conditions, the HP LaserJet P2015 Printer only uses $7.88 in electricity per year, a relative savings of $9.44 per device.
Viewed holistically, this adds up to significant energy savings. With the worldwide volume of monochrome laser printers at about 5.3 million units, this sums to an annual savings of just over $50 million if people used the more energy efficient I&P devices. This amounts to saving about 500 million kW hours—or enough energy to power approximately 50,000 US households for a year!
Another Green capability that sometimes goes overlooked in using LaserJets is the ability to save on toner by using the Economode setting. Choosing Economode for things like draft documents and printing out emails essentially let’s you use less toner than normal printing mode. As mentioned in Jim Lyons Observations, “Printing Less While Printing More”, this is functionality that has been available in LaserJets since 1993--imagine the potential toner savings over the last 14 years.
HP’s cartridge recycling program is another great example of how LaserJet users can be more “Green” conscious.HP has recycled over 92 million LaserJet print cartridges during this period through the Free & Easy: return & recycle program. My understanding is that our current recycling Program is larger than the combined efforts of all other I&P vendors. While free, the “easy” promise is delivered using bulk and postage-paid labels and envelopes for LaserJet cartridges in North America and Europe (drop-off bins and bulk boxes for Asia-Pacific and the Latin America regions). The plastics and metals from recycled HP print cartridges have been used to make a range of new products, including auto body parts, clothes hangers, roof tiles, serving trays and shoe soles.
To save on paper use, you also might consider using the duplex setting on your LaserJet, either manually or by selecting duplexing within the Universal Print Driver. To do this manually within the HP LaserJet printer driver settings, click on this link. A better alternative for those managing a fleet of I&P devices is to download the HP Universal Print Driver and selecting the automatic duplexing option. Think of the paper and trees that could be saved if everyone used more duplexing!
As you can see, over the years we’ve done a lot to help you save energy, toner and paper when using LaserJets. Hopefully, this will also help you save your own personal time and energy when evaluating I&P devices (and turn your competitors “green” with envy). Feel free to comment below on any additional ways you’ve learned to leave a Greener footprint in your imaging and printing process . . .
Posted
03-30-2007 2:26 PM
by
Anonymous