Making energy conservation and recycling an important element of your company’s culture and mission is an essential part of today’s modern office environment. Recycling waste is especially crucial for printing and copying as paper is the primary raw material consumed in the process.
What Is Eco-Friendly Printing?
Eco-friendly printing involves the application of greener options and products across the three main elements of the office printing process. These three areas include the printer, the ink, and the paper. The concept of going green in the office is aimed at minimising the impact on our environment by reducing waste, pollution, and energy usage during the printing and production process.
Green Printers
Eco-efficient printing technologies have seen a considerable increase in recent years with many printers now offering faster, more efficient printing methods that consume a lot less energy and resources while also producing much less waste. Concepts such as ‘unprint’ technology are being distributed among leading printer brands.
Recyclable Paper
Paper is the single largest material consumed within the printing process, but it is also one of the most recyclable. Purchasing recycled or other sustainable materials that are 100% biodegradable or recyclable is one of the best ways to reduce waste.
6 Tips For Going Green When Managing Your Print Process
How can you make your printing and copying more energy and conservation efficient? Going green when using printers doesn’t have to be complicated; it is more about focussing on the little things that all add up in the end that will make the most difference. Take a look below at our top 6 tips for using your printer in a greener way.
- Create A Companywide Print Policy. A formal print policy that addresses things like ordering guidelines for consumables (to avoid stockpiles), colour printing, best practices for paper conservation, when to use double-sided printing and where to leave discarded printed documents that can be repurposed. Establishing an environmentally conscious mindset in the workplace goes a long way to reducing unnecessary waste.
- Purchase A Multifunction Printer. Rather than operating multiple machines for different functions office-wide, why not consolidate your printing needs into a device that can print, copy, scan and more! Running just the one machine will reduce energy usage while consolidating the need for different consumables.
- Analyse Print Usage. Keeping track of who is printing, how much, when and what is a great place to start when trying to cut unnecessary paper and energy usage. Saving paper, toner and printer consumables wherever possible is a no-brainer when it comes to eco-friendly print practices, software such as ‘Papercut’ is a good example for this purpose. Using the information to educate staff and customers in ways to protect the environment is well worth the investment.
- Set Your Printer To Eco Mode. If buying or leasing a new multifunction printer, make sure it has energy-saving features and an eco-printing mode. Ink and/or toner saving modes are perfectly fine to use for drafts and interoffice communications and documents that don’t require high-quality output.
- Go Paperless. Paper usage is one of the most significant elements of your green print management plan, eliminate needless printing by distributing company and client communications via email or internal App not only saves paper – it saves money too!
- Consider Managed Print Services. Completing a companywide printer audit is part of the service you will receive when considering managed print services offered by local printer and copier distributors. This audit will provide answers to questions such as the number of printers, printer usage and needs, how much you pay to print your documents and how energy efficient your current printers are. This will enable you to make informed decisions about how you can create a more efficient and environmentally friendly printer fleet.
What Are The Best Eco Friendly Printers?
Having been in the printing and copying industry for nearly 50 years, here at BDL we choose to work with two highly-rated brands for all our leasing and sales; HP and Toshiba, because they take eco-friendly green products and practices seriously.
Both of these brands have made this year’s Climate Change’ A Lists’. Both of these brands hold strong environmental policies, see HP’s Sustainable Impact pages here, or here for Toshiba’s Environmental Vision. And we are a registered Recycling Agent for HP, see here for our HP cartridge recycling services.
Taking on board these brands dedicated to caring for the environment and educating their customers on best practices is just the beginning; see below for some quick links to each company’s efforts to reduce their environmental impact.
- HP Recycling consumables and equipment
- HP Sustainable Products and Solutions goals
- HP’s Sustainable Impact Report
- Toshiba’s Environmental Policy
- Toshiba Environmentally Conscious Products (ECPs) Standards
- Toshiba Group’s 3R Initiatives for Products
Green Multifunction Printer Options
A couple of examples of the features of environmentally friendly printers are:
HP PageWide Managed Colour MFP P77940 Printer Series
The high quality multifunction HP PageWide MFP’s are designed with best-in-class security features and energy efficiency in mind. Some of the prominent green features include:
- ISO class 5 clean rooms certification (ideal for enclosed environments).
- Easy cartridge recycling through HP Planet Partners.
- Print speeds of up to 50% faster than competitors, (60 ppm in colour and black and white).
- Single-pass two-sided scanning capturing documents in a single pass.
- HP Auto-on/Auto-off Technology
- Energy Star® qualified
- EPEAT® Gold Rated (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool)
- Blue Angel compliant (German ecolabel)
Toshiba e-studio 3508LPS – “LOOPS”
For a few years Toshiba has manufactured a copier that prints with a blue erasable toner. Once you have finished with the page you pop it back through the printer to be erased! You can then re-use the paper 4 more times. The newest hybrid model is also capable of printing in both the erasable blue and non-erasable black toner.
Of course this comes along with the usual excellent reliability and print quality we have come to expect of all Toshiba equipment.
Toshiba e-studio 7516ac Multifunction Colour Printer
The state of the art Toshiba e-studio 7516ac MFP is just one of the many eco-friendly printers in the Toshiba range, offering the following features:
- Workflow automation
- RoHS Compliance (Restriction of Hazardous Substances)
- Built using recycled plastics
- Low-power Super Sleep Mode
- Energy Star certification
- EPEAT Rated
- Blue Angel Certification
The BDL Commitment To A Greener Future
At BDL we are committed to building a greener future and caring for our planet and its people, we are committed to:
- For every printer sold we gift a tree to NZ aiming to reduce our carbon footprint
- Recycling, reducing and reusing
- Promoting the conservation of energy by increasing the efficiency of our managed print solutions
- Converting our vehicle fleet to electric-powered vehicles
- Using environmentally friendly products wherever possible
- Educating staff and customers in conservation and environmentally friendly printing practices; we have been awarded HP’s ‘Sustainability Partner of the Year 2020’
- Promoting print policies and enabling print-on-demand practices
Switching to more sustainable business practices and going green is now more important than ever for all industries and businesses, and eco-friendly printing is an excellent way to start! Get in touch with us at BDL today to find out how we can help you go green in the office!
