Even with so much access to the internet, there are still
many situations where we encounter printed materials, which need electricity,
paper, and ink to be produced. We all
know that printing with recycled paper products can help us preserve precious
natural resources, but did you know that many of the inks we use are
petroleum-based?
It is estimated that two liters of oil are consumed for
every commercial toner cartridge produced, and that U.S. commercial and government
agencies use more than 100 million cartridges of toner a year. In addition, these figures do not take into
account the amount of oil need to produce inkjet printer ink for personal
printers, or the amount of oil that is needed to make the cartridges that hold
the ink.
Thankfully, there are multiple alternatives to using
petroleum-based inks. One such
alternative is soy-based inks, which use much less, but still contain small
amounts of oil. The most eco-friendly
options are vegetable-based or petroleum-free inks, which do not contain any
petroleum.
By choosing to use environmentally responsible inks over
conventional inks and advocating for the same change in both government and
private production, we can greatly decrease the amount of oil that we consume. If we add using recycled paper and recycling
old and used ink cartridges to the equation, then we can affect great change
with little effort and make significant progress in eliminating the need for
petroleum while protecting our natural resources and the environment.
Sources:
Soy Print
http://www.soyprint.net/default.htm
1-800-Recycling.com
http://1800recycling.com/2010/11/soy-ink-petroleum-ink-recycling-greener/
No comments:
Post a Comment