Frac.ws

To many people printers and ink are a dull topic that only matters when the copier runs out of toner. To combat the apathy and antipathy towards printing supplies this edition of the toner blog will be spent discussing interesting Samsung toner cartridge info and trivia bits to occupy your time while you should be ordering another cartridge. So, with that in mind, did you know that…

The average Samsung toner cartridge takes between 400 and 1,000 years to break down and decompose, meaning that the cartridge you threw out the other week may quite possibly outlive our entire civilization. Add to that the knowledge that the U.S. alone throws away hundreds of millions of pounds of cartridges every year, filling landfills across the continent and creating enough garbage to wrap around the globe several times.

Samsung cartridges are built well, and despite what the company would lead you to think they can, in fact, survive multiple refills before needing to be retired to the recycling plant (or garbage bin). In fact, pretty much every cartridge you will see in your lifetime can either be refilled for immediate use, or sent into a recycling service to clean and refurbish the toner cartridge. Info on this process is around on the internet.

Printing and ink companies have felt so threatened by this recycling movement that they have threatened to void the warranty of any printer that has ever used a generic or refilled toner cartridge. This practice became prohibited by law in the U.S., so instead little computer chips were installed on each cartridge to prevent the printer from using it after it has been refilled. You need to either reset or replace the original chip to bypass this issue. And for the last bit of toner cartridge info: printing toner is not actually ink, but rather a combination of little plastic bits and coloring agents that bond together under heat to become the finished product we perceive as ink.

Face it America: we have a garbage problem. We have grown accustomed to buying disposable goods and tossing them into landfills when we are finished with them, and it has been doing immeasurable harm to our planet. Even the technology sector is not immune and the issue of ink and toner cartridge recycling has grown almost as fast as the landfills have.

Did you know that the United States alone throws away over 300 million empty ink and toner cartridges each year? That’s more than a million a day, and enough cartridges to circle the entire globe multiple times! Each one of these empty toner cartridges is made from plastic and metal parts that can take roughly 1,000 years to finally break down and decompose. That means that the hundreds of millions of empty toner cartridges we throw into landfills each year very well might outlast our civilization.

We might not be able to save the planet all on our own, but there are plenty of small steps we can take to slow down and ultimately stop the damage. Choosing to use ink and toner cartridge recycling programs is one great first step, and one that carries plenty of advantages and incentives. Recycling your old cartridges is not just good for the environment, but it is also good for you and for your local economy.

Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard that line before. Yet it is particularly true in this case: printer cartridges are made up of about 97% recyclable materials, and choosing to reuse the old materials is significantly cheaper than using virgin materials to build brand new cartridges. This drops the price that you pay in the store, saving you money. In fact, not only does using an ink and toner recycling program save you money, but many programs actually pay you for the cartridges. So remember, next time don’t throw out your printer cartridge, recycle it. It’s good for the environment, it’s good for the local economy, and it saves you money.

Let’s cut to the chase: why should someone bother reading toner cartridge articles? With all the wonders available on the internet it can seem rather foolish to spend your time reading a blog post about something as mundane as ink and toner cartridges, but in the end you might be surprised about how useful that post can be. The realm of toner cartridges is surprisingly diverse, and one of the easiest ways to keep abreast of new developments and emerging issues is to check cartridge articles from time to time before making a purchase.

For example, did you know that many third party companies produce generic toner cartridges called “compatible” cartridges for much less money than the common original equipment manufacturer (OEM) products you buy in stores? You did? Well then, did you know that many of those same companies produce edible ink cartridges, too? Yes, that’s right, edible ink. Just print your design on a specially designed frosting sheet and place it on a cake to create an incredible (and edible) picture.

Good toner cartridge articles will not only educate you about developments in the industry, but also show you how to save money on your next purchase. Sure, special deals and coupons can save you some change on your next $50 cartridge, but you will save even more money if you check out a toner blog and learn how to take an old cartridge and refill it with toner on your own. That’s definitely something that you won’t learn by talking to the clerk at your local office supply store!

Articles about toner cartridges and printing technology might seem like a waste of bandwidth at first, but once you look closer it’s easy to see that they contribute a great deal toward keeping the public informed about the industry and holding the major corporations in check. So stop making such a fuss and tune into a cartridge blog—who knows, you might just learn something!

Did you know that the black powder you find inside of a laser printer toner cartridge is not actually a type of ink? Believe it or not a surprisingly large number of people don’t know this little fact, or much else about the inner workings of a laser printer and the material it uses to produce quality products at the click of a mouse. Rather than ink, toner is actually a grouping of billions of small carbon and plastic particles that are bound to the paper to create the finished product.

The toner particles are so tiny that a single teaspoon can hold tens of billions of individual carbon or polymer particles, and it is thanks to this small size and the composition of the particles that makes toner so much more consistent than traditional ink jet printers.

The process of binding the toner particles to a piece of paper is actually a combination of static electricity and the application of heat and pressure to the paper. The way the process works is actually quite fascinating: at the beginning of the printing the photosensitive drum is given a charge to receive the toner. As the paper passes through the printer to the drum laser beams begin to draw the text onto the drum by discharging static electricity and the toner sticks to the discharged areas.

When the paper passes through the drum it also gets charged in order for the toner to stick to it, and then continues on to the heating and pressure rollers at the end which melt the toner and press it into the paper, creating the final product. A cleaning blade behind the photosensitive drum scrapes off any excess toner particles from the drum to keep it clean for the next image waiting in the queue.

Few people would shout out “toner blogs!” when asked to name influential sources of change in the world today, but they have earned their place on that list. Despite little promise of glory or riches, toner cartridge articles and their writers have been waging a long war to ensure quality control and to prevent price gouging and environmental destruction in an easily overlooked industry.

Perhaps the most prevalent discussion being circulated in toner cartridge articles today is the issue of the exorbitantly high prices for ink and the environmental impact of producing millions of single-use cartridges. While these might seem like separate issues at first glance, in reality they are so intricately intertwined as to be one in the same conversation. In an effort to increase profits most of the top brand names switched from selling refillable toner cartridges to disposable cartridges, forcing people to buy the whole set-up each time they wanted to refill their ink supply. As a result the price of each cartridge shot through the roof, profit margins soared, and millions of pounds of discarded toner cartridges began getting buried in landfills each year.

The blog community fought back by releasing a number of toner articles explaining how easy it is to recycle old cartridges. Any internet search about toner cartridges is bound to unearth several of them on the first page. The bloggers also posted do-it-yourself instructions for refilling old cartridges at home, saving thrifty consumers quite a bit of money. When the companies responded by implementing chips that stop a cartridge from being filled more than once, the bloggers hit back by describing the work-around and promoting refill kits to bypass them.

For years now the toner blogging community has been working hard to promote responsible business practices and environmental conservation all while showing you how to save money. Keep that in mind next time you start reading one of their articles, and perhaps even step up and contribute to the cause on your own.