10 Great Printer Ink Saving Tips

By: John C. Arkin

As the costs of just about everything continue to go up, spending on items that we might call luxury items goes down. You may not have thought about it before, but printer ink can be one of those luxuries when you’re considering whether to buy a half a tank of gas or a new set of printer ink cartridges. To forestall the purchase of those $30 black ink cartridges or $60 color/black packages there are some easy printing habit changes you can make.

Keep your nozzles clean

Perhaps the easiest change you can make to your printing habits is to keep an eye on your printer heads. The printer ink nozzles that dispense the actual ink use a spray function to get the ink onto the paper. As such, these nozzles can find build-up occuring. If the ink collects on the dispensing head excessively more ink will likely build-up on the head then the paper
Print only what you need

When it comes to printing, most people are fairly lazy. Click on the print icon and you’re done. This habit lends itself to several habits changes that you can make to significantly reduce your printer ink usage but also your paper usage. Instead of just hitting print, add the print preview function to see what you are about to print. Then ask yourself; do I need all those color ads on the sides? Do I need the last two paragraphs on the page? If not, consider turning off the color ink cartridges, select only the text you require and select only the pages you need –especially that last page with the footer that comes out with each print job.
Alternate colors and reduce size

Maybe this thought is going to the extreme but it will extend the overall replacement cycle of your ink cartridges. Print in different colors on a rotating basis. It may be a bit hard on the eyes but printing only in green or blue to spread the color cartridges use out over time is a way to better balance your overall cartridge use. Also on the bit excessive side, is reducing the font size on the documents you are printing.

Print only when needed

Keeping a leash on your clicking finger is perhaps the best ink saving tip that could be given. The tendency is to let your hand and finger head right for the print function as a matter of course. Stop and think about it for a few moments. Will that that piece of information be used somewhere else where I’ll need to reference it often? If not, try minimizing it for five or ten minutes. If you keep coming back to maximize it you can likely print it because it is relevant.

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This Article is written by John C. Arkin from PrintCountry, the contributor of Printer Ink Cartridges Articles. More information on the subject is at 10 Great Printer Ink Saving Tips, and related resources can be found at Printer Ink Cartridge.

Top 10 Easiest Things To Recycle

By: John C. Arkin

Just about everything is recyclable. One way or the other everything will return to dust at some point in the future. The only differences are how quickly and in what form will they get there. Recycling is a process that helps the products along their path in the right way. The mantra of “reduce-reuse-recycle” is all tied up in the recycling process regardless of the fact that “recycle” is used in the mantra. Unfortunately, some items shoot right through the recycling process to turn to dust after only a few product life cycles. Others, however, take longer to get through the recycling process –which is where reduce, reuse parts come in- and stick around for a second, third fourth and more lives. These are the products environmentalists like and are often the easiest to recycle.

The most and easiest material to recycle

The most recycled material on the planet is steel. For the most part, this is due to the number of cars manufactured and the amount of commercial construction waste generated each year. Steel is a great reuse item because it can be melted and recast without losing integrity. In many cases, the next printer case you see may be recycled steel or something close to it. Printers are notoriously associated as a price loss leader so cheap steel and components need to be found; used and recycled again if they are to be considered viable recycled products.

Aluminum

Aluminum cans are a recycled product that most will be familiar with. They may not be the most recycled product but they can be considered one on the most beneficially recycled where trash and aluminum prices are concerned. Your next printer likely won’t have much aluminum from cans in it but it will help with other areas of printing like markers in the ink cartridges.

Recycled printers

We’ve seen the recycled products being used in components of a printer, but what about recycling the printer as well. You may not think about it all that much, but there are quite a few minerals in computer peripherals like printers, towers and monitors.

Maybe not steel

In many printers, there is a good amount of steel included. For the most part, however, they are comprised of plastic. Plastic makes up the most waste by volume in our waste stream and is readily recyclable into computer shells and more specifically printer components.

Although there are many products that may not be the most recycled, in whatever measured you might consider, the world’s population is starting to recycle just about anything they can think of. Yard waste is a very big category; glass is a large category while paper and cardboard are perhaps the most profitable categories. When you look around, you may also consider; the carpet you’re standing on, the filters your furnace uses and the waste fluids you use every day when recycling.

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This Article is written by John C. Arkin from PrintCountry, the contributor of Printer Ink Cartridges Articles. More information on the subject is at Top 10 easiest things to recycle, and related resources can be found at Recycling Brother Ink Cartridges.