I think Printer Manufacturers must absorb some of the thoughts I am about to express today. To begin with, the Operating Manual – There should be a page or about half a page citing clear guidelines with regard to how paper should be fed into it.
For instance, just a couple of days ago, I ventured out of my cubicle to print some information on a letterhead using a laserjet™. I ended up printing the damn thing upside down – a waste of effort and more importantly, paper.
On another day, a colleague sought to save a thousand trees by printing forms on one-side sheets. 20 minutes and 5 trial prints later, our man had figured which way he was to load the rack. Those 20 minutes can easily be saved, not to overlook the additional ecological advantage of saving wood worth the 5 odd sheets of paper for each time someone tries printing on used paper.
Another little factoid is that the bigger a printing machine is, (it normally gets taller and taller) the more complicated it’s mechanism of moving a sheet of paper from the rack to the delivery tray. A mere print job becomes a 20 minute all-level spatial ability test. The 20 minutes that you spent thinking, visualizing and animating things in your head are proven incorrect in a matter of seconds.
Printer Manufacturers assume that we’ll load racks with fresh paper on which no one could care less as to what side the contraption is going to spray ink on. This is a product design assumption and not a pro-environment one. In these times of emission control, efficient utilization of natural resources, and controlled consumption, ‘Green’ design concepts are important. And these not only apply to the product itself, but also to the activities that led to produce, distribute and sell it – packaging for instance. It needn’t stop there, even the product’s recyclability and eventual scrapping should be ‘green.’
Are you suggesting that we should go green in the case of printers.?
Its hard to think about a green printer. We can use a greener ink of course though.
Regarding the complexity of the machine, I totally agree with you. They make you feel stupid. We need to have a machine that looks like press, you keep the paper something from top sort of rams the thing like a stamp. Instead the paper goes through a series of complicated rollers and the result it sprays ink on areas you don’t want to be printed.
Posted by vijay | August 17, 2010, 12:00 pmYeah… I tried printing an address on to the envelope and the printer preferred to place it on the bottom half . My Boss gave me those dirty looks only to look sheepish when he tried the same .
While the unit can be made out of recycled plastic , how do you suggest it be made bio-degradable ?
Posted by Meena | August 17, 2010, 12:32 pmthere is only one way that printing can be made green.
Instead of making them recycle-able we must make them with material that are recycled. Use non-biodegradable scrap to make printers.
Because making a bio-degrable gadget would mean that it must made out of wood and other things which will create a great deal of deforestation and harm the tasmanian fruit bats. We must think of utilising the harmful wastes. I believe science can give us genetically modified trees that grow faster, till that happens we must keep using only what is considered as waste.
Posted by vijay | August 24, 2010, 5:31 pm