STUDY: OVER 1/2 OF INKJET PRINTER INK IS THROWN AWAY

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/132969/study_over_half_of_inkjet_printer_ink_is_thrown_away.html
Study: Over Half of Inkjet Printer Ink is Thrown Away
As much as 60 percent of the ink in inkjet cartridges is wasted when printers ask users to throw away half-full cartridges.
july
08 As much as 60 percent of the ink contained in a typical inkjet
cartridge is wasted, when printers ask users to throw away half-full
cartridges, according to research commissioned by Epson.The printer
company commissioned research laboratory TUV Rheinland to measure how
much ink is used up and how much remains in an inkjet cartridge when
the printer claims it’s out of ink. The study revealed vast amounts of
wastage: no matter which printer you choose, around half the ink you
pay for goes unused. On average, inkjet printers provide an ink
efficiency of just 58 percent when used for photo printing purposes and
47 percent when used for printing business documents such as
presentations.Research company TUV Rheinland performed comparative
tests on eight different printers from well-known brands such as HP,
Canon, Brother, Lexmark, Epson and Kodak. The Kodak EasyShare model
that was included in the test proved to have an ink efficiency level of
just 40 percent. By contrast, models made by Epson and one HP inkjet,
were shown to have efficiency levels of around 80 percent.The printers
that scored particularly poorly were multi-ink cartridge models. This
category included printers in which colors are supplied in a single
unit of cyan, magenta and yellow as well as six-color printers that
have a five-color ink cartridge. The printers each printed as many
sample pages as possible until one of the colors was exhausted. The
residual amount of ink that was unused was then recorded.

TUV
Rheinland’s Hartmut Mueller-Gerbes explained that tests were carried
out separately for photo printing and for business printing. The sample
photo prints used were chosen at random by a focus group while a
typical PowerPoint presentation was used as the sample document for the
business-focused efficiency test.Here, explained Mueller-Gerbes, one
color tends to dominate as a presentation will have a particular color
theme “such as the light magenta used in our example or the light cyan
used in my presentation.” Because of this, business printing tends to
drain one color faster than any other and the printer alerts the user
that replenishment ink is needed.Epson commissioned the tests to
measure the environmental impact of ink waste and to back up its
assertion that it’s less wasteful — as well as cheaper — to use a
printer that has individual color tanks. Epson sells inkjet printers
only that have separate ink cartridges for each color. This means that
when one color runs out, the consumer can replace a single cartridge,
rather than having to replace all the colors when only one has been
used up, as is the case with multi-ink cartridges.The weight of the
inkjet cartridges was taken before and after the tests to ascertain how
much ink was in it. They also compared with the weight of an empty
cartridge to arrive at a figure for the ink on its own. The cartridges
were chemically cleaned to ensure the weight of the cartridge alone was
factored in.However, as conference attendees were quick to point out,
the tests Epson commissioned did not measure the cost to the consumer,
the number of pages each printer was able to produce before running out
of color and did not factor in the amount of ink used up by the
cleaning cycle that printers routinely perform. This last factor is
something industry experts believe accounts for a significant amount of
ink waste

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July 22, 2008 at 12:05 PM