What Is The Impact Of Printing On The Environment?

Saving the environment is one of those broad topics that a lot of people understand to be important but struggle to comprehend fully. An issue on a truly global scale, ‘doing your bit’ for the environment can seem futile, especially if you don’t really understand how your lifestyle contributes to ongoing environmental damage.

Although there are plenty of schemes in place to help the everyday man on the street grasp the ins-and-outs of carbon emissions and which rubbish to put into which bin, it’s also important to break down how the little things can have a dramatic impact on the environment.

At Cartridge World, we take the environmental impact of printing very seriously. Our ink cartridges and office supplies recycling schemes not only offer a cheap alternative to buying new, but they are also environmentally friendly.

But how exactly do printers affect the environment? Surely printing off a word document onto a piece of A4 can’t have that much impact...can it?

In this post, we’re going to break down some of the ways in which the way you print, and how you deal with disposing of old cartridges and printers, can negatively impact on the environment.

Paper Production

Paper is major source of waste - in 2008, paper accounted for over 12,000 tonnes of waste in the UK! Carelessly discarded documents, ignored and unnecessary memos, misprints...it’s easy to see where such an astronomical figure comes from.

Wasted paper leads to demand for even more paper, leading to deforestation. Thankfully, groups such as The Prince’s Rainforests Project are slowing the pace of deforestation but there is only so much they can do and the more paper we use needlessly, the more trees will have to come down.

The production of paper also leads to a significant amount of pollution, both atmospheric and water-based. Paper mills frequently release harmful gases such as CO2 and Nitrogen Dioxide into the atmosphere when producing, while water plays a big part in the pulping process. The waste water can find itself in fresh water sources, thus contributing to water pollution.

Printer Cartridges

You’re bound to have heard various horror stories regarding the toxicity of printer inks but in truth, printer ink can only cause you harm if you happen to ingest it (which is quite difficult to do by accident!). However, there are chemicals in printer inks that can be harmful to the environmental, in addition to petroleum oil and non-biodegradable plastic casing found in some ink and toner cartridges.

The negative effects of simply chucking away an old ink or toner cartridge are plentiful; the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and heavy metals in ink can lead to soil and even water pollution when left in landfill, while plastic can take thousands of years to degrade and even then pollute soil.

Of course, ink cartridges that are thrown away for good need replacing, leading to increased demand and thus more petroleum oil (although many ink manufacturers now use vegetable oil) and plastic is used and more pollution is caused as a result of production.

Your Printer

Compared to it’s consumables, printer hardware actually has relatively little impact beyond energy usage. Still, it’s important to ensure that you only have your printer turned on when you need it (this includes running cleaning cycles) and making sure that it is energy efficient.

The real environmental issues with the printer itself come when disposing of a printer. Electronic waste needs to be dealt with in a different manner to regular waste, yet many people still chuck their old electronics in with their weekly rubbish collection without much thought as to the impact of such actions.

So all in all, printing and printers can have quite the impact on the environment. Does this mean we should all stop printing? Absolutely not. Over the next couple of posts, we’re going to be sharing some environmentally-friendly printing tips with you all to ensure that we’re all doing our bit to save the environment - in a way that won’t mean changing your lifestyle entirely.

In the meantime, get ahead with your environmentally friendly efforts by taking your old printer cartridges down to your local Cartridge World store for a refill!

Image Credit: Greenpeace