5 Eco-Friendly, Money Saving Printing Tips

If you print heavily, share your computer and printer, or have children who print colorful webpages, you probably find yourself needing to replace ink cartridges frequently. Not only are these cartridges expensive, but an estimated 300 million ink cartridges wind up in landfills annually.

There are several things you can do to keep money in your pocket and lessen the landfill load when it comes to ink cartridges.

1. Choose refillable ink cartridges: Refilling ink cartridges can be a messy affair if you take it on yourself. A number of stores will refill them for you, Walgreens and Office Max being among them. However, not all ink cartridges are refillable. Find out from the stores that sell office supplies or have a photo department near you if they refill cartridges for your printer model. During printing, streaking is an indicator that the cartridge is running out of ink. This is the perfect time for a refill, as the cartridge should be filled before it runs dry.

When buying printers in the future, finding out if the ink cartridges it uses are refillable can save you money in the long run.

2. Recycle finished cartridges: Many libraries, Scouting programs, schools and office supply stores facilitate the recycling of ink cartridges. Don’t trash them; recycle.

3. Print in draft mode: Check out the owner’s manual for your printer to learn how to print drafts and unimportant documents in draft mode. (If you can’t find your manual, visit the brand’s website. They often have PDF versions online.) Printing in this mode uses less ink.

4. Print Preview: By simply previewing your document before printing, you can catch formatting errors and typos that will eliminate the need to reprint documents later.

5. Printing limits: If unsupervised, most kids will make endless prints from their favorite sites. Set a clear limit on the number of pages your children are allowed to print each day.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Donna H.

1:00PM PDT on Mar 20, 2012

Thanks for the info. I recycle cartridges that I can't refill, only print when strictly necessary and, like other posters, use the back of junk mail for my own reference items.

send a green star

Past Member .

9:28PM PDT on Sep 1, 2010

Good article. We should save our money to secure our future. You can save our money on printing activities by just following few things. Buy printers that consumes less electricity. See the document before printing so that you never have to reprint again. This will save your paper and ink.
http://www.financeandmarkets.net

10:51AM PDT on Aug 1, 2010

I found an interesting article about how changing the font can save money and ink:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125639616

mr C.

2:11AM PDT on Jul 18, 2010

thought i's add ecofont to the tips: http://www.ecofont.com/en/products/green/printing/sustainable-printing-using-ecofont-software.html

Kerrie G.

9:51PM PDT on Jul 9, 2010

I heard about the CISS (continuous ink systems) and have ordered one off Ebay. Hopefully it will be worth it's weight in gold.

Philippa P.

11:35PM PDT on Jun 20, 2010

I print only necessary pages and recycle all cartridges.

Pat T.

8:49AM PDT on Jun 14, 2010

Thanks for the assistance. I need recycled cartridges.
pat

Renee C.

7:09AM PDT on Jun 12, 2010

thanks

Beng Kiat L.

7:56PM PDT on Jun 9, 2010

Thanks.

Runka P.

2:24AM PDT on Jun 9, 2010

thanks for these great tips... now a days every thing is becoming electronic so i think it will a great idea to say good bye to hard copies also.... we must use both sides of the page to take printout where ever possible.... and try to save papers too...