Dayton, July 2010 — Shopping for replacement ink and toner cartridges can be an “eye opening” experience. Consumers quickly realize that the cost of purchasing a printer is minimal when compared to the cost of operating that printer, particularly the high cost of buying replacement ink and toner cartridges. It is not uncommon to find that the cost of replacing each of the four color toner cartridges in some of today’s most popular color laser printers will cost more than the price paid to purchase the printer. The purpose of this article isn’t to support or defend the cost the manufacturers charge for these consumables, rather to raise consumer awareness and to inform them about alternative replacement cartridge options.
The printer manufacturers claim that the retail cost of replacement cartridges is not “high” at all, rather “fair”. They back up these claims by stating the costs reflect the billions of dollars spent on the research and development of the science behind the ink and cartridge technologies. The reality is that the “printer consumables” product lines, which includes replacement ink and toner cartridges, are some of the most profitable product lines for printer manufacturers. The cost of printer consumables (ink and toner) has risen due to a very high consumer demand for these cartridges.
Facts Every Consumer Should Know About Ink and Toner Cartridges
Fact #1: Using Remanufactured Ink and Toner Cartridges Will Save Consumers Money
“Remanufactured” and “New Compatible” replacement ink and toner cartridges can be used by consumers instead of using “Brand New” OEM (original equipment manufacturer) cartridges.
* Remanufactured cartridges from reputable suppliers typically consist of a “re-conditioned” cartridge that has been given new parts (wipers, blades, drum, toner, ink, etc). These cartridges are subjected to quality control testing, performance testing, and then sealed and packaged for sale.
* “New Compatible” cartridges are actually manufactured new cartridges and not re-conditioned cartridges. They are considered “generic” versions of their respective OEM cartridges.
Remanufactured and new compatible ink and toner cartridges cost much less than their OEM counterparts. Most reputable vendors of these cartridges offer them at discounts of 50% – 80% less than the new OEM cartridge would cost.“Our customers typically save 50% or more when they buy remanufactured cartridges from us instead of visiting their local office supply store.” states Anthony Allen, President of PrinterExperts.com, a Dayton, Ohio based internet retailer that sells remanufactured and compatible ink and toner cartridges. “We have one customer that operates 48 auto parts stores across Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio that started buying remanufactured toner cartridges from us, which resulted in annual savings of $36,000.”
Consumers who replace ink and toner cartridges just once or twice annually can save hundreds of dollars, while consumers who replace their cartridges more frequently can realize annual savings in the thousands of dollars.
Fact #2: Using Remanufactured Ink and Toner Cartridges Does NOT Impact the Warranty of the Printer
Consumers are often misinformed and led to believe that using remanufactured or compatible cartridges in their printer will void their printer’s warranty. This is completely false. Ink and toner cartridges are “user replaceable” parts and consumers have the right, under US Federal Trade Commission Law, to use non-oem or non-branded parts when replacing them. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act is a United States of America Federal Law that states “Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty.” Enacted in 1975, it is the federal statute that governs warranties on consumer products.
Consumers are encouraged to research this law and get a better understanding of their rights as consumers.
Fact #3: Remanufactured Ink and Toner Cartridges Perform “As Well As” New OEM Branded Cartridges
The ink and toner “aftermarket” is made up of many companies selling remanufactured and compatible printer consumables, mainly ink and toner cartridges. To put it in perspective, a recent study valued the global toner cartridge and toner supply industry at $40 billion annually. Aftermarket toner cartridges and toner supplies make up 25% of the market or $10 billion annually.
The reason behind this growing figure is simple. The $10 billion “Aftermarket” toner cartridge and supplies market exists because these products work and offer consumers lower cost alternatives to buying new oem branded supplies.
Consumers considering the purchase of aftermarket toner products should seek out a reputable vendor. Reputable vendors of these products typically offer 100% satisfaction guarantees on their products that will allow consumers to return the products if they are not satisfied with the performance of the supplies. Business accreditations, such as Better Business Bureau, and other company accolades should also be investigated when trying to determine a company’s ability to supply quality products and services.
Remanufactured ink and toner cartridges purchased from reputable vendors and suppliers are going to work in the printers they were designed for. Print quality, color quality, and page yields should be equal to that of the oem version of the cartridge or product.
In conclusion, consumers are encouraged to increase their own knowledge of the facts stated above as the printer manufacturers don’t promote this type of information. Understanding the information in this article and your rights as a consumer will lead to making better purchasing decisions and hopefully save you a few bucks during the process.
JAKARTA — Greenpeace on Tuesday accused foreign firms like Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco of contributing to forest destruction and species loss in Indonesia by buying from paper and palm oil giant Sinar Mas.
The environmental group said Sinar Mas subsidiary Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) was “relentlessly trashing rainforests”, spewing carbon into the atmosphere and driving species to extinction in the Southeast Asian archipelago.
A Greenpeace report titled “How Sinar Mas is Pulping the Planet” accuses major international companies of being complicit in the rampant destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands by buying from APP.
Companies listed as Sinar Mas customers include French supermarket chains Carrefour and Auchan, US retail giant Walmart, British supermarket Tesco, British retail group WH Smith, US electronics giant Hewlett Packard, US fast-food chain KFC, Dutch Office supplies company Corporate Express and Australian global paper supplier PaperlinX.
National Geographic was named as among the magazine publishers that used Sinar Mas paper, along with CNN Traveller, Cosmo Girl, ELLE, Esquire and Marie Claire.
In addition to timber and paper products, Sinar Mas also allegedly uses unsustainable logging practices to make way for palm oil plantations that are seen as a major threat to Indonesian biodiversity.
Greenpeace said buyers of Sinar Mas palm oil included commodity traders Cargill of the United States and Wilmar of Singapore, as well as Japanese cosmetics producer Shiseido and US firms Campbell Soup Company, Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts and Pizza Hut.
He praised Unilever, Kraft and Nestle for dropping palm oil supplies from Sinar Mas affiliates, but said Carrefour still sold Sinar Mas palm oil products in its Indonesia stores.
Carrefour, Staples, Office Depot and Woolworths (Australia) had stopped buying or selling paper products connected to APP, while companies including Kimberly Clark, Kraft, Nestle and Unilever were reviewing contracts with APP.
APP sustainability director Aida Greenbury rejected the report, saying: “If they have the evidence then show it to the public”.
Sinar Mas and APP insist they are committed to sustainability but Greenpeace accuses them of breaking promises to source all pulpwood from timber plantations after 2009.
One of the APP logging areas studied in the Greenpeace report was the Bukit Tigapuluh Forest Landscape, home to endangered Sumatran tigers and orangutans.
Another area, Kerumutan, was covered in peatlands that lock in carbon that causes global warming when it enters the atmosphere as a result of logging and clearing.
The destruction of rainforests and peatlands is the main reason Indonesia is considered the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently announced a two-year moratorium on new forest concessions in exchange for one billion dollars in aid from Norway, conditional on verifiable cuts to greenhouse emissions.
But Greenpeace has joined other concerned groups in questioning the value of such commitments from a country that freely acknowledges massive corruption across its forestry sector leading to rampant illegal logging.
That photo of you coming out of your HP ink jet photo printer – you look so vibrant, so full of life. “Dahling,” the photo screams, “You look mahvelous. Absolutely mahvelous!”
You look so good in fact that you may ask yourself: “Do I really look like that?”
Sorry, my dear.
With HP ink jet photo printing (and probably others as well), what you see through the camera lens is not what you get on that glossy photo print. The image created is deliberately rendered to be more rich and vibrant than in real life.
“We tune for what the customer wants, not for accuracy,” says HP marketing manager Thom Brown. Hewlett Packard, like the smarmy Billy Crystal character on Saturday Night Live, is just showing you what you want to see.
I first noticed this trend a few years ago, when testing an HP printer in a head-to-head review against a Kodak model. While the Kodak photos appeared a bit washed out, the HP photos were noticeably oversaturated. Skin tones looked richer (nice tan!), that blue winter hat on my daughter’s head was so bright that it practically jumped off the paper – and I have to admit that I gravitated toward the brighter images.
Apparently it’s not just me. Brown says HP’s “humanetric,” or psychophysical studies back that up. “Most people tend to like the more vibrant photos. People tend to want to remember something that looks slightly better than reality,” he says.
For HP, giving the customer what he wants is win-win. The more flattering the photo, the more likely you are to print more, which helps HP sell more paper and printer ink.
There’s nothing smarmy about giving the customer what he wants – that’s just good marketing. On the other hand, perhaps full disclosure is in order: Perhaps something along the lines of “Objects in the photo are less vibrant than they appear…”
However, if you’d rather face the cold, hard truth with your images, HP’s printer software will let you dial back the brightness. But why buck the trend? As a culture we like our movies too loud, our colors too bright, our music auto-tuned to perfection.
Print-Rite introduced the Pivotal cartridges in World Expo 2010. The Pivotal line represents the state of the art of remanufactured cartridges. They consistently perform as well as any other top line toner cartridges and provide consumers with an attractive price discount.
Las Vegas, NV July 14, 2010 — Today, Print-Rite, the world leader in digital imaging supplies, unveiled its Pivotal line of premium remanufactured toner cartridges at World Expo 2010, hosted by Recharger Magazine at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on July 14 and 15 in Las Vegas, NV. Print-Rite introduced the printer cartridges in the Pivotal exclusive booth, where throughout the show it is running side-by-side print comparisons of the Pivotal cartridges with premium toner cartridges of a number of other well-known brands.
Pivotal represents the top of the line in Print-Rite’s toner cartridges. Products at this top level of quality have been in high demand by Print Rite’s most demanding customers. Additionally, more enquiries for top quality toner cartridges were received in the last six months, notably from companies offering managed print services, which drove Print Rite’s decision to introduce these products as a separate and distinct line of products.
The Pivotal line represents the state of the art of remanufactured cartridges and Print-Rite has leveraged its extensive expertise to produce these premium cartridges. A dedicated team of veteran product developers reverse-engineers each cartridge in the Pivotal line. Using tools and techniques designed to assure superior performance, the cartridges are then remanufactured by a specially-trained team at Print-Rite’s technically-advanced, 1.2-million-square-foot, vertically-integrated manufacturing facility.
At World Expo, printers equipped with Pivotal cartridges generate print samples in Print-Rite’s booth along side machines using toner cartridges from a number of other well-known brands. “When it comes to premium quality, seeing is believing,” says Mr. Ho. “There is just no disputing the superior performance of the Pivotal cartridges,” he says. “And regardless if they come in the morning, or in the afternoon, or the next day, visitors to our booth will see the same great performance–sheet after sheet and cartridge after cartridge. More important, that’s what end users will experience too.”
Each Pivotal cartridge is made from an ultrasonically-cleaned virgin core and refilled with customized toner that has been matched to a proprietary OPC drum. The drum-toner combination ensures precise color matching and area fills with the highest optical density. Pivotal cartridges feature other proprietary components such as doctor blades that eliminate streaking and wiper blades that will not flip when cleaning.
Quality control is key to ensuring each Pivotal ink cartridge delivers consistent, superior performance. Individual components are tested and certified before they are included in the remanufacturing process. Finished cartridges are then tested using protocols that establish high-quality baselines for both horizontal and vertical print jobs. Additional testing of characteristics such as print quality and color consistency as well as optical density and edge acuity guarantees all match those of the best cartridge in the market. Tests are performed under various environmental conditions including high- and low-humidity. Pivotal cartridges also undergo page-yield testing that complies with established ISO standards.
The strict product safety management system at Print-Rite Unicorn warrants each Pivotal cartridge is safe to use and environmentally friendly. Print-Rite Unicorn is the world’s first printer cartridge factory accredited the IECQ QC080000 certification for Hazardous Substance Process Management, which provides a framework for the responsible control and management of hazardous substances. The cartridge is compliant with the EU’s REACH and RoHS initiatives regulating the use of hazardous materials, and also satisfies the requirements of the US Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
Although Pivotal cartridges are premium products, they do not carry a premium price tag. Pricing for the new line will be competitive with other premium products currently on the market. Pivotal cartridges for popular Hewlett-Packard color and monochrome laser machines will begin shipping in the third quarter of this year. Cartridges for equipment from other OEMs are expected by the end of the year. Print Rite is currently taking orders.
TAMPA, Fla. – The commercial paper industry’s plans to plant forests of genetically altered eucalyptus trees in seven Southern states have generated more cries from critics worried that such a large introduction of a bioengineered nonnative plant could throw natural ecosystems out of whack.ArborGen, a biotechnology venture affiliated with three large paper companies, got U.S. Department of Agriculture approval last month for field trials involving as many as 250,000 trees planted at 29 sites during the next few years. Much smaller lots of the genetically altered trees have been growing in some of the states for years.
Australian eucalyptus trees grow faster than native hardwoods and produce high-quality pulp perfect for paper production, but thus far, they have been able to thrive only in very warm climates. South Carolina-based ArborGen genetically altered the trees to withstand freezing temperatures, and the idea with the test forests is to see how far north they can now be grown.The test sites will cover a total of about 300 acres in Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana.
While genetically engineered crops such as corn and soybeans have become common, ArborGen’s experiment marks the first large planting of designer trees in the United States. The company says plantations of hearty, faster-growing eucalyptus could produce more timber in a smaller area and allow conservation of natural forests.But critics say that despite the USDA’s assurance that the trees pose no environmental threat, not enough is known about their effect on natural surroundings.”We have many reservations about it,” said Neil J. Carman, a biologist who serves on the Sierra Club’s genetic engineering committee. “We don’t think the scientific evidence is in yet that says this is a good idea.”
Anne Petermann, executive director of the activist group Global Justice Ecology Project, said eucalyptus trees are invasive, require vast amounts of water that could reduce groundwater levels, and increase the wildfire risk because they are so flammable.”This is quite a dangerous tree to be mass planting,” Petermann said.But ArborGen CEO Barbara Wells said eucalyptus trees have not proven invasive in dozens of tropical countries where they are widely grown on plantations. Also, ArborGen genetically modified the trees to limit their ability to disperse seed and spread.Although the new field trials will significantly increase the number of genetically engineered trees being grown, Wells called it “very confined research.”
“The total is 300 acres, but when you’re doing tree research, that really is very small acreage,” she said, noting that about 20,000 acres of genetically unaltered eucalyptus trees are already grown in central and southern Florida for production of wood chips and mulch. The new test forests will show whether the genetically altered trees can thrive farther north in Florida, where freezing temperatures can occur in the winter.
Donald Rockwood, a professor emeritus in the University of Florida’s School of Forest Resources and Conservation, has worked for about 30 years on developing eucalyptus trees that thrive in Florida. He uses traditional breeding techniques, not genetic modification.The genetically unaltered trees growing in controlled plantations in Florida have not proven invasive, are relatively efficient users of water and are no more flammable than other hardwoods, said Rockwood, who was hired by ArborGen to do a report on eucalyptus trees’ invasiveness because of his experience working with them at the university.
Still, Rockwood said, introduction of any genetically altered species poses risks. For example, the gene that makes the trees resistant to cold could be transferred to surrounding plants, allowing them to spread farther north than nature intended.”It certainly needs to be done carefully, it needs to be regulated and there needs to be a period of well-defined observations,” Rockwood said.The ArborGen trees will be planted in seven counties throughout Florida, four counties each in South Carolina and Texas, two each in Alabama and Mississippi and single counties in Georgia and Louisiana. Rockwood said they can grow about 25 feet per year and be ready to harvest in less than three years.ArborGen is a joint venture of International Paper, MeadWestvaco and Rubicon Ltd.