Turn it off, Turn it on, if not call John!
Inkjet Printers, killing the planet one page at a time?
There is no longevity to the life of an inkjet. The same could be said about a lot of products, but how can that be right in this day and age? A time when we are supposed to be at our most environmentally aware, yet printer waste, and e-waste in general, carries on seemingly unchecked.
As the ubiquitous choice of home printer for many families – and small businesses – there are three main issues with the use of inkjet printers:
- The cost of ink
- The impact on the environment due to them being “throwaway” items
- The lack of replacement parts and repair options
Figures show that the average person in the UK discards approximately 24kg (53lbs) of e-waste a year. In a bid to lower that figure, I am on a mission to reduce the number of printers that unnecessarily find their way into landfill!
What are the issues?
We are all aware of the ridiculous cost of printer ink. Amongst the main manufacturers — Brother, Canon, Epson and HP — there are no stand-out performers when it comes to price, they are all pretty comparable. There are, of course, other manufacturers (and no disrespect to them) but these four are the main ones I come across in my work.
The high cost of ink inevitably leads people to look for cheaper alternatives online, which can create its own problems.
I used to be dead against the use of cheaper inks, but in this current financial climate and with the cost of living soaring, I can totally sympathise — running costs are high — and it is hard for small businesses or parents simply trying to print school work for their kids.
The biggest problem generally is with printheads. The printhead is the part that does the printing, that the inks feed into. Printheads can clog up and they can dry out, and once this happens then they need replacing.
The cheaper inks can often clog the printheads, especially with the really cheap brands available from large online retailers. What started as a more affordable way to buy ink can end up being a really expensive mistake.
Unfortunately, it is not unheard of for the printheads to clog even when people have only ever used genuine manufacturer ink, they are not infallible. Imagine the frustration of “doing the right thing”, using the expensive, “proper” ink and you still get a problem which is more often than not unrepairable.**
So, the printheads need replacing, why does this then render the printer unrepairable? The problem is that replacement parts are not always available or accessible and, if they are, then they are usually quite expensive, especially in comparison to the cost of a new printer. It can be cheaper, easier, or sometimes the only option to throw away a printer and get a new one. Madness!
The other main problem is to do with the service station or pump cap assembly, and these differ depending on manufacturer. This is the area inside the printer that does the periodic cleaning of the printhead.
The printer will clean itself anyway after a certain number of prints or pages, and quite often goes through a sort of cleaning initialisation process when turning on or off. Despite this cleaning procedure, what eventually happens is that the printer begins to fill up with excess ink.
Some printers have ink pads which the ink feeds into, and some have plastic ink wells, but with either system the area eventually begins to overflow.
The pad systems have counters set on them, so that a warning message comes up when they are full and the printer can no longer be used. However, these pads — and the software required to reset the counter — are not readily available or affordable to buy. This, again, leads to printers being chucked away when – theoretically at least – they could be repaired.
The ink well systems do not have a counter which tells the printer when to stop, they just fill up! The ink essentially has nowhere to go except outwards. This causes the service station to seize up and not move or initialise properly and the printer will register a fault which is generally unresolvable.
How can we make a change?
Net Zero and sustainability are (or should be) in the forefront of the minds of all businesses right now, and for good reason. Yes, companies need to make money, but that they also have a responsibility to achieve this in a sustainable way.
I think there is a great opportunity for a leading manufacturer to lay the groundwork for real change in the inkjet printer industry. It just takes one to make the leap and I am sure the others would follow.
Step One: If genuine ink was more affordable, this would reduce the market for cheap alternative ink manufacturers.
If more of us were using genuine ink, this would dramatically reduce the amount of printer waste.
Less use of cheap non-genuine ink = less printhead clogging = fewer printers in landfill
Step Two: Make replacement parts readily available and affordable AND increase repair options.
If the parts needed to fix the most common faults with inkjet printers (think printheads, inkpads and inkwells) were readily available to buy, and there were more options for reliable repairs, this would again reduce the amount of unnecessary landfill.
More replacement parts available = more repairs = fewer printers in landfill
Step Three: Stop treating inkjet printers as a “throw away” item.
Inkjet printers are highly technical machines. As such, they should not be considered as disposable items.
Investment in product longevity = more reliable products = fewer printers in landfill
All three of these relatively simple steps have the same end result — fewer printers in landfill.
A big lump of plastic and ink that takes between 500 and 1000 years to decompose! In my line of work, I see at least one printer a day scrapped due to lack of replacement parts — just think about this issue on a global scale!
When it comes to e-waste, most people want to do the right thing, and would far rather get their machine fixed instead of having to replace it. Unfortunately, the opportunity to do so can be limited by availability of parts and overall cost. As a repairman by trade, it is so frustrating to see these same problems EVERY day, yet be limited in what I can do for my clients for these same reasons.
You have probably heard this funny Tweet: “Rage Against the Machine never specified what machine they were raging against, but I am sure it was printer.”
I urge us all, as users of printers, to rage against the manufacturers instead, and ask them to create a machine which is repairable instead of replaceable. Then we will really start getting somewhere.
Share this post
EXCELLENT GOOGLE REVIEWS
