Printing ‘Green’ with SoyPrint

A new and innovative development has recently been introduced into the world of laser printing by a company known as Print Recovery Concepts, Inc. Though known mostly for being a vendor of affordable, third party toner cartridges in the past, they now offer toner that comes from soy beans rather than the typical oil-based product. Though soy ink has been around for a while, this is one of the first instances of soy toner, but it certainly will not be the last.

Though a good alternative to OEM cartridges, do not expect the SoyPrint products to be as affordable as other alternatives are, namely remanufactured cartridges.  These are considerably less expensive than other options because they are made from previously-used and recycled cartridges.  The toner will not be quite as eco-friendly as the soy toner, but the remanufactured option is a way to be environmentally-friendly as well as budget-friendly.

In the United States of America alone, businesses, schools and government establishments consume nearly 100 million toner cartridges every single year.  According to howstuffworks.com, about 50,000 tons of petroleum are used to make brand-name toner cartridge each year. Not only is this detrimental to the environment, but landfills fill up with waste that is made of harmful oils. Perhaps soy printing could be a solution to this growing problem.

SoyPrint toner is made in the United States and is said to produce the same quality documents, the same amount of prints per cartridge and cause no harm to the laser printer, according to the President of Print Recovery Concepts. In fact, few people realize that newspapers have been printing for 15 years with soy ink and soy toner.  One may think these alternative toners would be overly expensive, but they are priced at around the same price as oil-based, OEM versions.

Soy printing may be a very environmentally-friendly option, but its high price doesn’t offer a savings over OEM versions. For a less expensive, but still fairly eco-friendly option, remanufactured cartridges are available. Although they use the same chemicals in toner as standard laser printer cartridges, the fact that they are made from recycled cartridges still makes them a great way to help the environment and reduce landfill waste.