Inspired by Epson’s Turn Down the Heat campaign and recent promotion of inkjet printers as being more energy-efficient than laser printers, Blue Planet Ink decided to investigate the energy used by the printer in inkjet printing compared to the energy to make the paper used for office printing.
The calculations used data from Epson’s specifications for the EcoTank/SuperTank ET-2720 inkjet printer and data from the Environmental Paper Network Paper Calculator Version 4.0. (www.papercalculator.org).
As expected the energy used for paper was higher than the energy used to print but the magnitude of the difference was surprising. The data showed that the energy to make a sheet of paper was about 1500 times the energy to print one side of that paper.
“It’s a struggle to comprehend a difference that big,” commented Carl Yee, President of Blue Planet Ink. “Using one fewer sheet of paper saves enough energy to power a printer for 1500 pages.”
To help visualise the differences in energy usage the company produced an infographic in which the energy to print is represented by the area of New York City and the energy to make paper is represented by the area of Russia.
One way to reduce paper consumption in printing to re-use paper whenever possible. Blue Planet Ink’s Paper Saver self-erasing inkjet ink is designed to allow paper to be re-used. After a few days the purple coloured ink becomes colourless and the paper is blank again, like new.
“Epson has done a good job making energy efficient printers and raising awareness. We offer their customers the option to do much more by reusing paper.”
Blue Planet Ink was founded in 2010 to develop and commercialise self-erasing inkjet ink. The company is located in San Diego, California, and is privately held.
