4 Eco-friendly Tips To Save Money On Printing

Don't you just hate it when your ink catridges run dry when you are in the midst of churning out an important report? The disappearing ink gets even more "farcical" when you have kids at home doing school projects (all the colorful pages) and your wife runs a home business.

If you are like me, you probably have to replace ink cartridges frequently and needless to say, it is an expensive affair. There is a report which reveals that nearly 300 million ink cartridges wind up in landfills annually.

You can work out how much printer companies are profiting from ink catridges. However, there are several tips you can use to reduce the landfill and save money in the long run.

1. Use refillable ink cartridges

During printing, streaking is an indicator that the cartridge is running out of ink. This is the perfect time for a refill, instead of waiting till the cartridge is wasted entirely.

Refilling ink cartridges can be messy but well worth the effort. If you don't know how to do it, a number of stores (Walgreens, Office Max or your local photo retail) will refill them for you.

However, not all ink cartridges are refillable. When buying printers, check if the ink cartridges can be refilled.

2. Recycle finished cartridges

Many libraries, scouting programs, schools and office supply stores facilitate the recycling of ink cartridges. Don’t trash them; recycle.

3. Print Preview

By simply previewing your document before printing, you can catch formatting errors and typos that will eliminate the need to reprint documents later. Do not skip this simple process if you want to save paper, ink and money.

4. Printing limits

If unsupervised, most kids will make endless prints from their favorite sites. Set a clear limit on the number of pages your children are allowed to print each day.