WEBVTT - How Green Printers Work

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<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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<v Speaker 1>tech stuff from how stuff works dot Com, brought to

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<v Speaker 1>you by HP Live wirelessly, print Wirelessly. Hi there, my

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<v Speaker 1>name is Chris Pollett. I'm an editor here at How

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff Works. Welcome to the podcast today. I have with

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<v Speaker 1>me writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, we're gonna talk about

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<v Speaker 1>how it's not easy being green, or it could be

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<v Speaker 1>easy being green. I mean, we do live in the

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<v Speaker 1>uh one century, the era of the paperless office, right, Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>you don't see paper any where. I'm still waiting for

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<v Speaker 1>that paperless office. I don't know about you. Um. Before

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<v Speaker 1>before my tenure here at How Stuff Works, I lived

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<v Speaker 1>the life of a of a lowly worker in a

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<v Speaker 1>consulting firm and uh and I won't name names. I'm

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<v Speaker 1>not going to name where I worked or anything like that,

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<v Speaker 1>but I will say there were people who were notorious

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<v Speaker 1>for uh having their assistance retrieve emails, print them to paper,

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<v Speaker 1>and then hand them over, thus negating any use for

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<v Speaker 1>email whatsoever in my eyes. Actually, one of my big

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<v Speaker 1>pet peeves is walking over to the printer and this

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<v Speaker 1>has happened in many places I've worked, uh, walking over

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<v Speaker 1>the printer, picking up my print job and looking down

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<v Speaker 1>to see a stack of paper about the size of

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<v Speaker 1>a pack of paper sitting there for old print jobs

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<v Speaker 1>that people have never picked up. And I'm sure I

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<v Speaker 1>probably have contributed to that stack from time to time.

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<v Speaker 1>But sure, Yeah, you send something to a group printer

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<v Speaker 1>and then you get distracted, and then you forget that

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<v Speaker 1>it's just sitting there, and then you realize you never

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<v Speaker 1>really needed it in the first place. Exactly. So there's

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<v Speaker 1>all there's a human element to to printing that obviously

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<v Speaker 1>we could adjust to make things better, but that's not

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<v Speaker 1>the only thing we can do to to help make

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<v Speaker 1>printing more environmentally friendly. In fact, there are a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of manufacturers that are looking into various solutions to make

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<v Speaker 1>printing have less of an impact on the environment, that's true.

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<v Speaker 1>One of the leading UH manufacturers who are who are

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<v Speaker 1>doing that at this point is Xerox. They actually have

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<v Speaker 1>a number of different initiatives, not picking on on just

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<v Speaker 1>Xerox or others, but um, it was just earlier this

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<v Speaker 1>year that Cina did an article on something that Xerox

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<v Speaker 1>is doing some researchers in the Palo Alto Research Center. Um,

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<v Speaker 1>you may or may not have heard of it, but

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<v Speaker 1>they've done all kinds of amazing computing things over the

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<v Speaker 1>past few decades. And uh one of the things they've

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<v Speaker 1>come up with is reusable paper. Yeah, it's a really cool.

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<v Speaker 1>This paper is coated with a photo sensitive chemical and um,

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<v Speaker 1>what happens is the chemical turns dark when when it's

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<v Speaker 1>hit with UV light, um so ultra violet light. Uh.

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<v Speaker 1>You see what essentially what we're talking about here is

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<v Speaker 1>a printer that prints disappearing inc uh the right out.

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<v Speaker 1>They're talking about between sixteen and twenty four hours. The

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<v Speaker 1>ink would fade away, and you would come back to

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<v Speaker 1>a sheet of paper that looks just like it did

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<v Speaker 1>when you first put it into the printer. And you

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<v Speaker 1>may say, well, what's what good is that? You know,

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<v Speaker 1>if you print something and it just goes away. Well,

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<v Speaker 1>there are a lot of uses actually, I mean you

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<v Speaker 1>wouldn't want to use it for legal documents. That would

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<v Speaker 1>be a bad use, But a good use would be

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<v Speaker 1>for let's say you have a restaurant and your restaurant

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<v Speaker 1>does daily specials. Well, instead of wasting paper every day,

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<v Speaker 1>printing out these daily specials. You could use the same

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<v Speaker 1>paper to print out your daily special and then the

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<v Speaker 1>next day be ready to go and print again. And

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<v Speaker 1>in fact, Xerox has a printer that, by design, uh

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<v Speaker 1>will wipe a page clean of of its print and

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<v Speaker 1>then print a new page directly on there. So you

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<v Speaker 1>need the same piece of paper. You just run it

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<v Speaker 1>through even if the ink has not faded yet. It

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<v Speaker 1>baths the paper in ultra violet light at such an

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<v Speaker 1>intensity that immediately wipes the page clean and then prints

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<v Speaker 1>it anew so you you can keep using the same

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<v Speaker 1>paper until essentially the paper wears out and it won't

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<v Speaker 1>feed through the printer anymore. So that's it's basically racing

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<v Speaker 1>the paper, right, you know, like you would a magnetic

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<v Speaker 1>storage device or something like exactly, Yeah, you can, uh,

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<v Speaker 1>And it's making paper more like a more like an

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<v Speaker 1>electronic document in a way, because you can just run

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<v Speaker 1>it through a little machine and it clears it and

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<v Speaker 1>gets it ready for the next pass, you know. I UH.

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<v Speaker 1>When we were doing research on this podcast, I found

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<v Speaker 1>an article from the New York Times from November two

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<v Speaker 1>thousand and six something obviously that that park has been

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<v Speaker 1>working on for some time. UM and an anthropologist working

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<v Speaker 1>for Park named Brenda del All said that people are

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<v Speaker 1>generally using paper in offices for display. What that means

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<v Speaker 1>is what what that means is that essentially, rather than

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<v Speaker 1>printing stuff off so that you can save a copy

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<v Speaker 1>of that, you know, put it in your archives, put

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<v Speaker 1>it in your files, and keep it, what people are

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<v Speaker 1>using it for is for meeting. They're printing out presentations

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<v Speaker 1>and other things that you would distribute it at meetings,

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<v Speaker 1>and once they're done, they are discarding them. And I

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<v Speaker 1>think that's one of the things that one of the

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<v Speaker 1>reasons that Park is working on something like this, because

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<v Speaker 1>you could print print these things out on this reusable paper,

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<v Speaker 1>distribute them for the meeting, and then when the meeting

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<v Speaker 1>is over, instead of throwing in the recycle band and

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<v Speaker 1>using the paper and the towner and the energy to

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<v Speaker 1>print that UM, you can just turn back in to

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<v Speaker 1>turn the sheets back in and have them reused later,

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<v Speaker 1>which is very very cool. Yeah, it's it's pretty and

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<v Speaker 1>and like you mentioned, there are other companies that are

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<v Speaker 1>looking into this kind of thing too. A few years ago,

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<v Speaker 1>Toshiba came out with a device that UM and a

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<v Speaker 1>printing method that uses a special kind of ink. It's

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<v Speaker 1>actually got three components and that two of them give

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<v Speaker 1>it a color and the third one removes the color

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<v Speaker 1>when heat is applied. So the idea is that you

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<v Speaker 1>would run this paper through the printer, you print out,

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<v Speaker 1>your documents comes out and kind of a bluish uh tent,

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<v Speaker 1>which is that they actually called the ink e blue,

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<v Speaker 1>and you can hand out the documents and everyone reads them.

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<v Speaker 1>When they're done, they can hand them back to you,

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<v Speaker 1>and then you would run them through a machine that's

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<v Speaker 1>essentially a heater. You'd run it through and it would

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<v Speaker 1>erase the ink from those pages, so you could use

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<v Speaker 1>the paper again. Same sort of concept with zerox, except

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<v Speaker 1>instead of using ultraviolet light, you're using infrared radiation or

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<v Speaker 1>otherwise known as heat um. But it's the same sort

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<v Speaker 1>of idea, recycling paper so that you know you're not

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<v Speaker 1>taking as big a toll on the environment, because that's

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<v Speaker 1>that's one thing, you know, that's something that separates printers

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<v Speaker 1>from other electronic devices like computers and and things like that.

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<v Speaker 1>You have the the energy requirement of the device itself

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<v Speaker 1>that plays a factor, and how environmentally friendly or unfriendly

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<v Speaker 1>it is if it's energy start enabled for example, or

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<v Speaker 1>versus not enabled. But then you have the hardware version

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<v Speaker 1>of it, you have the the toner you have, or

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<v Speaker 1>ink you have the pay for, so you have things

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<v Speaker 1>that make an environmental impact beyond just the energy needed

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<v Speaker 1>to run the device. That's true. UM. Other things that

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<v Speaker 1>you may not be thinking about when you consider your

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<v Speaker 1>printer are the amount of low level ozone that's pumped out.

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<v Speaker 1>If you walk by the exhaust port on your UM printer, UM,

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<v Speaker 1>and you don't drop a couple of proton torpedoes in

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<v Speaker 1>it to blow it up, UM, you'll notice that there's

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<v Speaker 1>it's what seems like hot air. Well, that's actually ozone UM.

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<v Speaker 1>And you know it can actually be a pollutant at

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<v Speaker 1>low levels, you know. And you might say, well, hey,

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<v Speaker 1>maybe my printer is helping fill that hole the ozone there, Well,

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<v Speaker 1>it's not. It stays down here, you know where we are,

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<v Speaker 1>and it's actually a low level pollutant. It's not good

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<v Speaker 1>down here. It's good up there, but not down here. Right.

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<v Speaker 1>And then you have the print cartridges if you have

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<v Speaker 1>an ink jet printer there, they're plastic and they can

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<v Speaker 1>be recycled. Actually, uh, tree Hugger, which is sort of

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<v Speaker 1>a and and strange way a sister site to how

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<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot com. Tree Hugger had an article about

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<v Speaker 1>toner cartridges being recycled into lumber or down cycling where

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<v Speaker 1>you can actually press it into plastic furniture. Um, so

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<v Speaker 1>at least you can do something with those. But there

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<v Speaker 1>are other things to the ink and those, and the

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<v Speaker 1>toner and laser printers is toxic. That stuff is actually dangerous.

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<v Speaker 1>So when you change the toner cartridge general laser printer,

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<v Speaker 1>make sure you wash your hands afterwards, because that's actually dangerous,

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<v Speaker 1>uh stuff, you don't want it to be exposed to

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<v Speaker 1>it for a long time. And and the recycling goes

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<v Speaker 1>the other way to HP printers are using inject cartridges

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<v Speaker 1>that are made from recycled plastic bottles. So yeah, so

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<v Speaker 1>you've got you've got it coming in going in that case. Um,

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<v Speaker 1>so yeah, there there are a lot of companies. You know,

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<v Speaker 1>HP is actually leading in several areas as far as

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<v Speaker 1>uh uh, the the environmentally friendly printing initiatives go. Um,

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<v Speaker 1>they're also looking at discontinuing using and full chemicals when

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<v Speaker 1>they're producing their printers, so uh, things like uh, PPC

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<v Speaker 1>and everything that anything that could possibly have toxins in it.

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<v Speaker 1>Because e waste is becoming a bigger problem too. What

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<v Speaker 1>do you do with your electronics when they've lived out

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<v Speaker 1>their useful life and you've upgraded. You know, if you

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<v Speaker 1>just dump it into the dump, there could be toxic

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<v Speaker 1>chemicals that leach out, and and that's a whole new problem.

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<v Speaker 1>So a lot of companies are looking into alternative ways

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<v Speaker 1>of building their devices so that they don't have these

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<v Speaker 1>harmful chemicals and metals to begin with, which is a

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<v Speaker 1>you know, that's that's a good step in the right

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<v Speaker 1>direction too. And another thing that I discovered was this

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<v Speaker 1>free software from green Print which highlights and removes blank

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<v Speaker 1>pages from your documents. That's I wanted. I'm gonna have

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<v Speaker 1>to sign up for the free the free trial immediately

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<v Speaker 1>because I read about this. Not only does it not

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<v Speaker 1>print blank pages, but it can hecked when you have

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<v Speaker 1>a page that's just say, a header and a footer

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<v Speaker 1>and there's nothing else there, so it's not totally blank,

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<v Speaker 1>but it can detect that and not print that page

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<v Speaker 1>as well. And if any of you have ever printed

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<v Speaker 1>a web page, like send a web page straight to print,

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<v Speaker 1>you probably ended up with that final piece of paper

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<v Speaker 1>that has nothing useful on it whatsoever. Green Print theoretically

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<v Speaker 1>eliminates that, right that that's true. I have no idea

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<v Speaker 1>what it would do for those manuals that have this

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<v Speaker 1>page intentionally left blank on it, however, Right, Well, that's

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<v Speaker 1>that's really for duplex printing anyway. So we're talking about

0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.560
<v Speaker 1>single side printing here, and that's true. If your printer

0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.040
<v Speaker 1>supports duplex printing, which is printing on both sides, you're

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<v Speaker 1>using one last piece of paper. Um. I we have

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<v Speaker 1>a printer here in the office that I prefer to

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<v Speaker 1>use because it prints on both sides of the paper.

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<v Speaker 1>They're also other initiatives. Rico, another printer manufacturer from Japan,

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<v Speaker 1>for a while in the was working on a system

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<v Speaker 1>that would remove the towner from the paper and it

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<v Speaker 1>would work up to ten times. But apparently the company

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<v Speaker 1>is no longer offering this, according to the article in

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<v Speaker 1>the New York Times that I read, So I'm guessing

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<v Speaker 1>that it didn't take off. Maybe it was ahead of

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<v Speaker 1>its time. If it was in the people weren't as

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<v Speaker 1>interested in conserving before the costs of energy were increasing. Um.

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<v Speaker 1>But another thing that would would actually use its own

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<v Speaker 1>electricity to power it. Um in November for the anniversary

0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.840
<v Speaker 1>cover of Esquire magazine, it's going to use e ink

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<v Speaker 1>Electronic inc Um, which is essentially a series of plastic

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<v Speaker 1>capsules that have die in them, and when a charge

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<v Speaker 1>is applied to one side, it pulls the die to

0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:39.680
<v Speaker 1>that side, and when it is pulled to the other

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<v Speaker 1>the charges applied to the other side of the electronic paper, UH,

0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.000
<v Speaker 1>the die has pulled to that side. So in effect,

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<v Speaker 1>what it does is it can you can actually change

0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.040
<v Speaker 1>what it says in the paper depending on where the

0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.319
<v Speaker 1>electric charge is applied. It's sort of like uh an

0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:57.320
<v Speaker 1>electric TV one of the like an LCD screen where

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<v Speaker 1>it has the different pixels and everything is you know,

0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:02.440
<v Speaker 1>it's charge is applied for to a certain point on

0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:06.440
<v Speaker 1>that screen for a certain uh to receive a certain color. Well,

0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.320
<v Speaker 1>in this case, it's basically black or white or you know,

0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:13.760
<v Speaker 1>a color and white. UM. But it's going to allow

0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.160
<v Speaker 1>Esquire to have words that scroll across the front of

0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.559
<v Speaker 1>the magazine. The thing is, it's only going to work

0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.200
<v Speaker 1>for a certain amount of time because in order to

0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:23.840
<v Speaker 1>do that, it's got to keep a charge running to

0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.800
<v Speaker 1>do that. Xerox has a printer that will print pages

0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:32.360
<v Speaker 1>of This is called guricon or gyraicon um and it's

0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.680
<v Speaker 1>reusable paper. It works similarly basically the instead of having

0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:39.480
<v Speaker 1>a ball where the ink moves from one side to

0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.080
<v Speaker 1>the other, the balls are basically black and white, um,

0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.240
<v Speaker 1>you know, on one side or the other, and they

0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.160
<v Speaker 1>flip over depending on where the charge is applied. But

0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.400
<v Speaker 1>basically in that situation, uh, you print it one time

0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.520
<v Speaker 1>and it keeps that there doesn't have to continually have

0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.120
<v Speaker 1>a charge because it's the image is not changing. Um.

0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.800
<v Speaker 1>But you could use the reusable pay prot do that too,

0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.480
<v Speaker 1>and the electronic ink would give you the opportunity to

0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:08.200
<v Speaker 1>have the same page and only use one page and

0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.240
<v Speaker 1>have it change depending on what it is that you

0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:14.040
<v Speaker 1>need to display. Wow, that's pretty cool. And for you

0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.520
<v Speaker 1>office managers out there who are kind of curious as

0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.679
<v Speaker 1>to how much how much waste both environmental and just

0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.720
<v Speaker 1>solid waste your printers are generating, Xerox has come up

0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.199
<v Speaker 1>with a neat little tool for you called a sustainability calculator,

0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.240
<v Speaker 1>And you just go to the to xerox is page

0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.240
<v Speaker 1>and look for the sustainability calculator. What it does, is it?

0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.079
<v Speaker 1>It lets you put in a couple of points of input,

0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.880
<v Speaker 1>mainly how fast your printers work, how many you have, um,

0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.280
<v Speaker 1>how many images you print on average in a in

0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.160
<v Speaker 1>a certain period of time, and then it calculates how

0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:51.280
<v Speaker 1>much how much solid waste it produces, how many how

0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.200
<v Speaker 1>many greenhouse gases it might produce, um, how much energy

0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.160
<v Speaker 1>it consumes. It can really help you see what your

0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.319
<v Speaker 1>carbon foot print is as far as your printing side

0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.880
<v Speaker 1>of operations go, and maybe make some changes if you

0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.920
<v Speaker 1>if if things are looking kind of grim, you can

0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.840
<v Speaker 1>maybe downsize the printers and make more have more of

0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:16.120
<v Speaker 1>a centralized printing location, and that can help out a lot.

0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.760
<v Speaker 1>Of course, the easiest way to uh, to minimize this

0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.280
<v Speaker 1>waste and electronic or impact of electronic devices is to

0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:26.880
<v Speaker 1>use them as minimally as possible. Don't print more than

0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.320
<v Speaker 1>you need to. And that's that basically comes down to

0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.520
<v Speaker 1>you and me, right Yeah, like I said, putting the

0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.240
<v Speaker 1>human element right back in there. Um. Yeah, the the

0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.760
<v Speaker 1>these manufacturers are working really hard to make things as

0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:40.880
<v Speaker 1>easy as possible for it to be green. Now it's

0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.000
<v Speaker 1>up for us to carry it the rest of the way.

0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.080
<v Speaker 1>I guess we should probably wrap this up. We've talked

0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:47.960
<v Speaker 1>about a lot of different subjects here, but if you

0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.200
<v Speaker 1>want to learn more about just one in particular, I

0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:54.040
<v Speaker 1>suggest reading how electronic ink works at how stuff works

0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:56.440
<v Speaker 1>dot com. And we'll talk to you again really soon.

0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.000
<v Speaker 1>Let us know what you think, send an email to

0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:07.640
<v Speaker 1>podcast and how stuff works dot come. Brought to you

0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.040
<v Speaker 1>by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are

0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:11.200
<v Speaker 1>you