Ink Costs

The cost of ink is going to play a major role in the amount of money you spend on a printer. Use an ink finder to figure out how much the ink is going to cost for a printer you want to buy, and then figure out if it’s actually something you want to spend money on. Your really cheap printer could cost a whole bunch of money to maintain, and then it won’t be a good deal anymore. That’s the beauty of doing your research.

Ink Efficiency

Just like your car has a fuel efficiency rating, your printer should have an ink efficiency rating. In essence, this will be a measure of how effectively a printer utilizes the ink you put in it. If you get something that uses ink sparingly, you will always save money. If you buy an ink guzzler, you will have to spend more money on ink cartridges in the future. Think about all of this before you buy something you can’t afford to maintain.

Printing Quality

The printer paper you use will have a big impact on the quality of your prints, but so will the printer itself. Quality printers cost more money to maintain, but they give you better images in the end. You have to determine what is most important to you and pick out a printer from there. If you have been looking for a new printer in your home or office, the tips above will hopefully point you in the right direction.

Buy in Bulk

You can always save money when you buy in bulk. While you may spend more on the overall item, you will save money on each individual item in the package. You can find great deals when you buy bundles of ink cartridges, even if you have to hold some of them in a closet until you need them. There is nothing wrong with being over prepared for the next year, so you might as well save money now and have peace of mind in the future.

Plan for the Future

If you don’t want to buy your HP toner cartridges in bulk right now, you at least need to take the time to plan out the office supplies you will need next year. Think about how often you go through ink, paper, and everything else you need for your home or business. Then compare prices online to see how much you may have to pay to be fully stocked next year. You can watch for savings as they come up throughout the year, and then you will slowly reduce the amount of money you have to spend. Just make sure you take advantage of the sales as they come up.

You can never be too prepared for another year. Make one of your new year’s resolutions to buy everything you need ahead of time, and then you won’t have to pay three times as much as you need to for last minute supplies. If you shop around online now, you can potentially save a ton of money for the future. You just have to know what you need and know what it takes to get it.

Light Fixtures

Believe it or not, you can buy light fixtures made out of old ink cartridges. These modern décor pieces are actually becoming quite popular because they are different and unexpected. You may not be able to wire something like this on your own, but you could buy one of the pre-made ones to put on display in your office. This could be the perfect lighting right above your copier toner or general office supplies.

Knick Knacks

If you get a cool shelf to display the cartridges on, you could actually use them like knick knacks to decorate a wall. You could put oversized paper clips and rolls of colored tape to fill the shelves as well, and then you will have your very own office supply art work. This is simple to put together, even if you aren’t the most artistic person in the world. Just make sure your display appears balanced, and you should be just fine.

Table Tops

You could use ink cartridges to create a top for desks, tables, and any other flat surface furniture you have. This will take a little extra work, but it could make a great display if you do it right. You will need to have some sort of vertical border around the desk top that you can fill with liquid glass. Put the ink cartridges and anything else you want within the border, and then pour on liquid glass to create a flat surface. This may cause the ink to bleed from the bottom of the cartridges, but that will create some interesting texture in the table top. Let the glass dry completely, and then you will have a custom desk that other people will adore.

Think outside the box the next time you see an ink cartridge and see what you can do with it.

Hiding Your Printer

Hiding ink cartridges is a lot easier than hiding a printer itself. If you do not use your printer often, you could set it up on a wireless network and keep it inside a closet. If you keep it on, you could simply print your papers from your computer any time you need to, and then you could go to the closet to get them. You could also store the printer there and pull it out when you need it, but that may become a pain over time. Put the printer in a cabinet, closet, or other closed space, and no one will know it is there.

Hiding Printer Cartridges

When you need to hide toner cartridges, you can simply store them in a drawer. You could also put them on a spinning rack in one of your office cabinets, along with other office supplies you may need access to. You could also put the ink on a knick knack holder on the wall, similar to a spice rack. Get creative with your display, and you may actually be able to use it as a work of art.

Hiding Printer Cords

If you have a ton of cords hanging around your printer, you may consider getting cord wrappers, which will bundle all of the wires into one large group. You could also buy a cord cover for the floor, which will make the cords blend into your flooring. You could staple the wires to the wall or group, but make sure you do not go through them with the staples. Then you can see about putting something over them to make them blend in.

Your printing supplies may be an eye sore, but that does not mean you have to keep them on display. You can tuck them away in other areas of your office if you look around hard enough.

Environmental Facts

Researchers have found that it takes a single ink cartridge more than 1,000 years to decompose, but it only takes a few minutes to make one. When you think about all of the non-composing waste that could form as a result of this waste, it is easy to see why recycling is so important. The average inkjet cartridge utilizes 3.5 ounces of oil during production, and every year, over 300 million cartridges are thrown in the trash. That is more than 75,000 tons of trashy every year just from cartridges, let alone all the wasted oil that went into them. It takes a full three pounds of raw materials to make one ink cartridge. You could save all of that by recycling.

Logical Facts

Now that you have a clear picture of the threat non-recycled ink cartridges put on society, you need to realize that recycled ink cartridges are just as useable as new ones. The plastic used to make them is incredibly durable, and the ink inside is the same as ever. If you practice ink conservation in your home and work environment, you should be able to minimize waste and improve those statistics for the future. Recycle your ink cartridges, and you will make a difference.