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Soy-Based Toner Cartridges?
Jon.Laslow writes "I'm getting a lot of pressure from managers to switch to soy-based toner cartridges for our laser printers because they are 'greener.' The problem is, the only information I can find on them is from sales pitches; and the reviews all seem to be user testimonials. Do you have any experience soy-based printing products? Did you have any issues with them, and how was the print quality?"
To be honest, I hadn't even heard of this. This article says the very first cartridges just became available at the end of last year. Amazon has them but it looks they all come from one company (the one mentioned in the article I linked) and I couldn't find any reviews or comments. I did notice that as far as I can tell they are the only company selling soy based toner cartridges and they only sell them for HP right now - though I guess they plan to add others in the future. That may solve your issue right there though, unless you own the right printers.
Interestingly enough the link in TFA doesn't seem to point to a company that does anything other than refurbish and refill toner cartridges with regular toner. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see a thing about soy based toner. I'm sure someone will point me in the right direction on that if I'm mistaken.
So I'd be interested as well in hearing if anyone has actually used this yet, but unless it has been an immediate disaster it doesn't seem that enough time has passed to tell how well it is going to work.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
initial printouts were as dark as conventional toners. they did not match the darkness of original oem carts but were ok with our HP remanufactured carts in quality with oem toner.
after 3-4 weeks we started to see fade. think thermal fax machine fading type fade. they dont last long with UV light exposure (basically sunlight hitting the laser printout). we've since stopped using em.
YMMV.
Most toner is made from oil: it takes about 1 million barrels of oil to supply the US with toner for a year. This is less than .1% of the oil the country uses. Obviously not a huge deal from that perspective.
Soy toner has two things really going for it: first is, it's easier (ie cheaper) to recycle. Paper with soy toner is easier to recycle. Second, the cost is about the same as normal toner.
I haven't actually seen it in use, so I can't say what it will look like, but if the quality is equivalent to that of carbon based toner, then there is no reason not to use it, and a few small reasons TO use it.
Qxe4
When i worked as an offset litho printer, back in the early 90s, we used soya bean ink. It was good stuff - and, as far as i remember, gave off less chemical fumes than standard ink.
Want to go green? ... [snip list of recommendations that don't relate to the computer industry] ... When the ink jet containers themselves are made of soy, and the mfgs standardize their cartridges so that reuse is more feasible, I'll take notice.
I'd offer the suggestion that increased attention on the part of consumers and manufacturers to the polluting nature of manufacturing computer parts (and petroleum products in general) is a step in the right direction. Or do you really think we can get somewhere without taking one step at a time?
Anything that's used by individuals in small quantities may be insignificant, but taken as a whole, there's probably a incredibly large number behind the quantity that's manufactured. And then dump in our water or land.
I'm no green nut, but seriously, loosen up. Soy ink? Why the hell not? The newspaper industry adopted it years ago, and while the formulation isn't exactly 100% natural, it was a step in the right direction.
You are misinformed.
Soy ink is made from a non-food soy that is distinctly different from "regular" soybeans. However, that is used for the oil in the ink, not the pigment, and there is no oil in toner. So it is questionable just what they are doing with that soy in "soy-based" toner.
In any case, back to the subject: you may be right about the soy crops, but the answer to that is simple: stop using Monsanto soy. That is not exactly rocket science.
And as for the Roundup, it needs to be sprayed directly on plants, in order to be absorbed and do its work. Roundup is biodegradable in the extreme: it is broken down into harmless naturally-occurring chemicals shortly after it contacts the soil. That is why so many people found Roundup to be so frustrating: it would kill all the weeds in their yard, but even before they were completely dead, new weeds would start popping up. Because any roundup that did not touch a weed disappeared within a couple of days.
I applaud your concern for the environment (and in particular the non-reproducing crop garbage that corporations have tried to pull), but you should do some research before willy-nilly pointing fingers.
At an ag-educated guess, the black pigment for "soy-based toner" comes from burnt soybean *hulls*.
As to the phytoestrogens, some interesting reading that is backed by considerable research:
http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/04birthdefects.htm
(Be aware that flaxseed meal has 3 to 4 TIMES as much phytoestrogen as soy, and is sufficient to be somewhat effective as a contraceptive, and to cause birth defects, when used in dog food.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Maybe you could explain the purpose of the woodchip mill at Eden, in the south east corner of Australia, then. Old growth forest is logged and then chipped in that mill and shipped to Japan to make paper. And i'm certain that's not the only place in the world where old growth forests are logged for paper production.
You can improve on this dismal performance by getting a commercial recycling company to refill old cartridges for you, but after a couple of refills the drum is no longer as good as it was, and print quality starts to deteriorate (on the other hand, one drum may be able to print perhaps 50-60000 report printouts or similar.)
Many of the more heavy duty printers use separate toner tanks and drums. This is far more effective at the expense of requiring an IQ in excess of 100 to replace toner. The drum unit may last from around 20000 pages on smaller machines to, say, several hundred thousand on a Kyocera. In Xerox printers I've looked at, the actual toner may account for more than half of the toner tank mass.
Quite simply the best and most effective way to make your printing less environmentally offensive is to go over the entire estate, identify the older machines that use heavy cartridges with a short life, and scrap them. (this will piss off middle managers who probably have them on their desks, but then they wanted it in the first place.) Then do a little homework on actual needs and replace them with something more cost effective. Replacing individual printers with workgroup printers shared among 5-15 people (based on their workload) reduces the carbon footprint per page printed for more than anything else, and tinkering with toner won't be significant in comparison.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp
Everyone involved agrees a $2000 cleanup crew is ridiculous and should never have been recommended. It was never in fact used, as the person who broke the bulb couldn't afford it. There are now published cleanup instructions from various environmental agencies along the lines of "ventilate the room well".
Per the WP article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Mercury_emissions ... ...
"CFLs, like all fluorescent lamps, contain small amounts of mercury as vapor inside the glass tubing, averaging 4.0 mg per bulb
In areas powered by coal, CFLs end up saving on mercury emissions versus incandescent bulbs, due to the offset power use (coal releases mercury as it is burned).
In the United States, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that if all 270 million compact fluorescent lamps sold in 2007 were sent to landfill sites, that this would represent around 0.13 tons, or 0.1% of all U.S. emissions of mercury (around 104 tons) that year."
So, yeah, use CFLs.
The selenium isn't the issue, just as the trace of mercury in CFLs isn't the issue, it's the wastefulness of putting the whole, nonbiodegradable thing into landfills.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Soy ink? Why the hell not?
Tackle the biggest issues first, the smaller issues become the biggest.
For my personal context that means: car (100), heating (73), electricity (26), exotic food imports (3)...
My next car will have about 25% more fuel efficiency, and if I drive 20% less distance I will bring the weighted score for my car to 60. Or a 20% improvement of my energy consumption (40/(100+73+26))
Now, what would be the effect if I was planning on how to buy more environmental friendly toiletpaper? 0.001 points (haven't got any actual data to back that up), but worse, I would be side tracked and not tackle things that have a big impact.
That is an urban myth. CFL's do require special cleanup, but is is a pretty simple process. See Snopes for more information.
.16 metric tons of mercury, or raise the US yearly amount by 0.16 %.
According to the EPA, the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere every year is 104 metric tons, mostly created by coal fired power plants. Since most of the mercury is bound to the CFL bulb as it is used, even if every CFL that was sold in 2007 (290 million bulbs) were sent to landfill, it would only release
Power factor doesn't quite work that way. Power factor is not like an efficiency. A bulb with a power factor of .5 (terrible, but common for CFLs) doesn't ACTUALLY consume double the power that it would at a PF of 1. It DOES double the resistive losses in the wiring and so should be corrected, but that's not the same as doubling total energy consumption.
It's a problem for power companies because most of the losses are incurred on their side of the meter so they don't get to bill for it.
Note though, since a 60Watt equivalent CFL will be 14 Watts, even doubling it to 28Watts would leave you well ahead of the game.
Longer term, whole house power factor correction is an option. Or the utility can add it per neighborhood. Finally, it could be added at the light socket. If the power companies start installing meters that measure power factor and providing billing incentives for correcting power factor (as they do for larger customers now), the power factor problem will be fixed.
Even better, A major limitation of CFLs is that they must fit a majority of lamps and fixtures designed for incandescent bulbs. That sets an upper limit on the size of the electronics. In turn, that means they design the electronics with a limited life and make them disposable.
Ideally, the electronics would be a separate long life module and the actual fluorescent tube would be the disposable part. Then it would be practical to include power factor correction in the electronics.
Standard toner consists of a pigment suspended in a petroleum-based polymer. As such, toner has the environmental impact of any other consumable plastic, including off-gassing and the potential exhaustion of a non-renewable resources. The real problem, however, is that toner must be removed from pulp when recycling paper. The toner removal process uses toxic chemicals and produces a non-biodegradable and non-recyclable sludge waste product.