Environmentally friendly printing

Inkjet or laser?

Good news for inkjet printers: After Epson, Canon and HP have now joined the ranks of refillable cartridges (similar to refillable toners for laser printers). The refill is supplied in plastic bottles that hold at least 70 ml per color. This brings along an ecological benefit as well as a clear cost advantage. Although these devices are more expensive to purchase, the printing costs are significantly lower. With conventional inkjet printers, the printing costs per page of text are between 2.7 and 8 cents, whereas a page from a device with ink tank costs only 0.3 cents. There is no need to shy away from the comparison on the ecological side either: With 10,000 color pages, refillable tanks cause 120g of waste - conventional ink cartridges, on the other hand, cause 3kg of waste.

High quality photos and graphics, the inkjet printer is ahead of the game. However, if you need razor-sharp text printing and high working speed, a laser printer is recommended. The printing costs for laser printers are around 3 cents per page of text. But there are certainly models that print color pages with graphics in convincing quality, including the test winner, which has been awarded the Austrian Ecolabel.

Devices with Ecolabel

In addition to a pure color laser printer with the eco-label, the test also included a multifunction printer certified with the Austrian Ecolabel (thus, eco-label printers were test winners in two of four test categories) - but what does that actually mean?

The production of office equipment consumes many raw materials, inks and toners can contain substances that are hazardous to health, many devices consume unnecessary energy when idle - not so with office equipment bearing the eco-label. Because these are guaranteed

Durable: At least five years after production has ceased, spare parts and the infrastructure necessary for repair must still be available. Equipment and toners are taken back free of charge at the end of their service life and recycled or disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner
User-friendly: The pollution of indoor air during printing is harmless, as inks and toners contain no harmful substances and only a minimal amount of heavy metals. Sound power limits guarantee quiet operation and prevent noise pollution and the resulting weaknesses in concentration
Energy-saving: The limit value for energy consumption in idle times or standby states minimizes power consumption

A list of certified office equipment with print function is available HERE.

The test results in detail are available at www.konsument.at and in the test magazine KONSUMENT.