HP PITCHES TONER / INK PROPAGANDA TO ASIAN GOVERNMENTS

[Anonymous]

HP PITCHES TONER / INK PROPAGANDA TO ASIAN GOVERNMENTS

Cheap can cost your government agency dearly, argues HP
As you consider your printer supplies options and set your print purchasing policies, ask the hard questions to get the real story behind perceived cost and environmental benefits of remanufactured supplies. Technology analyst firm Gartner acknowledges this “We have long advised clients to take control of their office printer fleets and reduce their spending by 10 per cent to 30 per cent — and to do so without relying on remanufactured supplies.”

The proof is in the printing. Evaluate this before you settle for less:
Yield and image quality – According to Gartner, enterprises that use remanufactured supplies often experience problems associated with low yields and poor image quality. As Gartner notes, “One national government that mandated its agencies purchase only remanufactured supplies later discovered that users had to reprint black-and-white documents up to five times to get readable versions.”

Cartridge failures – In another independent testing, more than 40 per cent of tested remanufactured toner cartridges experienced problems. During testing, remanufactured cartridges continually had problems such as blotchy, faded or lined prints. More than 35 per cent of the pages from tested remanufactured cartridges were of limited or no use.

These problems lead to unexpected costs in the form of repairs to equipment, additional prints due to poor quality and printer downtimes.

Cost per page – Use cost per page as the benchmark for cost comparison, and not absolute unit price. A set of Original HP Color LaserJet printer toner cartridges can cost up to $76 less than remanufactured cartridges when you factor in the costs of reprinting pages that don’t meet business customers’ standards for external distribution.

Environmental and social impact – Remanufacturers lay environmental claims. However, most empty cartridges are remanufactured only once. InfoTrends estimates that four out of five remanufactured toner cartridges sold will be thrown away after use.

According to Gartner, “Conversations with remanufacturers and their wholesale customers raise yet another set of concerns about whether remanufactured supplies deliver the environmental and societal benefits that customers may assume.” In addition, cartridge remanufacturing is increasingly outsourced “offshore” to countries with lower labor costs and less stringent environmental regulations. “Done wrong, remanufacturing can undermine cartridge recycling programs or leave behind e-waste.”

If recycling is a top agenda for your organization, look at whether your supplies manufacturer has a recycling policy. HP’s printing supplies recycling policy requires that all recyclable materials are recycled to recover their material values and to maximize recovery rates, while materials that cannot be recycled are recovered for energy or incinerated to minimize materials sent to landfill.

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March 16, 2011 at 9:00 AM