Investing in Green Technology

Christopher James

As we become more aware of the environmental impact of our work environments and technology products, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Should I leave my computer and other appliances on overnight, or turn them off when I’m not there? How can I reduce the amount of paper I’m using? Where should I recycle my discarded supplies? As Kermit the Frog once said, “It isn’t easy being green.”

However, investing in green technology is easy! The three products highlighted in this article are designed to maximize resources while simultaneously reducing your office’s waste, thus lowering your carbon footprint. Though many of these products carry a small initial cost premium over more traditional products, they soon pay for themselves with the savings realized from reduced consumption and lowered energy costs.

Managing Printing Waste

Have you ever printed something from a website and ended up with less than a quarter page of text at the end — or even just a line? Want to eliminate that unnecessary page? GreenPrint¹ (currently available for only the Windows platform) is a print driver and PDF creation software application which helps eliminate waste before printing, saving paper, ink, and trees.

The GreenPrint software analyzes each page of every document sent to the printer and identifies typical waste characteristics (e.g. pages with just a URL, banner ad, logo, or legal jargon), then highlights and removes these objects. It also provides the ability to remove images from a page before printing, resulting in significant ink and toner savings. According to company statements, GreenPrint saves the average user over $90 and 1,400 wasted pages per year.

GreenPrint is available to the individual user in two versions — the free GreenPrint World and GreenPrint Home Premium, which costs $35 and features faster previews than the World version, no advertising, email-based technical support, and frequent version updates. There is also an Enterprise edition for companies of any size, which provides insight into waste reduction through a company-wide printing overview and tracks the resulting environmental information, such as the saved tree quantity and CO2 reduction. It also provides an easy way to reuse paper that has already been printed on one side before recycling it.

I began using the software in December 2006, and gave it as Christmas gifts to my family and friends. The interface is easy to use — with a pain-free installation process, it delivers on all its promises, including prompt technical support and product upgrades. My tech-savvy “tree-huggin” little brother has not stopped extolling its virtues, and has kept a running total of his environmental “savings” using the product.

Controlling Ink Waste

While most laser printer cartridges are recyclable — manufacturers often allow the buyer to send used cartridges back for recycling at no cost — they first must be created, packed, and shipped to the consumer, and if recycled, then shipped back to the manufacturer. If you are considering purchasing a new color office printer, and are concerned about the amount of waste that laser toner cartridges create, consider Xerox’s Phaser, a solid-ink technology color printer with the capability to print text and graphics with nearly the speed and quality of a laser printer.

The technology isn’t new — solid-ink printers have been around in one form or another for over 15 years — but because it’s proprietary to Xerox, it is not well known or widely used, and until recently, there weren’t many printer models to choose from.

Phaser printers use solid sticks of non-toxic ink instead of dry toner or ink-filled cartridges (think of the sticks as the “bouillon cubes” of the printing industry). The reduction in solid waste is dramatic: after 100,000 prints, a color laser can produce 157 pounds of waste, while a solid-ink printer produces only five pounds, according to company documentation.

Solid ink requires less physical packaging, does not need to be returned to the manufacturer for disposal, and is easier to install in the printer. The unique, shape-coded color ink sticks are merely dropped into specified slots on the top of the printer, with nothing to spill; the inks can be replenished at any time, even during printing. Because the printer must remain powered on to have maximum use of the liquefied ink, this technology is best for large organizations with high printing volumes.

Not only is Xerox’s Phaser technology environmentally conscious and easy to use, they have also recently partnered with GreenPrint to bundle a full version of the Enterprise GreenPrint software with Xerox’s Phaser 8560 and 8860 solid-ink color printers. According to GreenPrint’s November 1, 2007 press release, “the collaboration allows Xerox customers to save over 15,000 trees and 50,000 tons of greenhouse gases annually”.²

A Xerox Phaser color printer, which uses solid-ink technology to help eliminate the waste generated by traditional toner-based printing.

Power

As part of your environmentally friendly technology upgrades, consider purchasing a “smart” power strip, which helps keep “phantom” power-drawing appliances from sucking power when they are turned off. A “smart” power strip such as a Watt Stopper or Smart Strip Power Strip are intelligent enough to cut the phantom power to your electronics when they’re not in use.

The Watt Stopper’s Isolé IDP-3050³ is an energy-saving control system consisting of an eight-outlet power strip and an occupancy sensor, which detects whether the workspace is occupied by a person and connects to the power strip with a cable. Six of the power strip’s outlets are controlled by the occupancy sensor and two are uncontrolled. The IDP-3050 automatically turns all controlled devices on when it senses that the workspace is occupied, and turns them off when the workspace has been unoccupied for the user-defined time delay (between 30 seconds and 30 minutes).

Another “smart” power strip, the Smart Strip,⁴ monitors power consumption and senses when computers and other devices are on or off. When your computer is turned off, the unit senses the drop in current draw and shuts off the power, eliminating the idle current drawn from it, incurring savings on energy bills in as little as six weeks.

The Isolé IDP-3050 "smart" powerstrip.

There are many more energy- and environment-saving technical gadgets on the market. Not only do these devices help you contribute to a sustainable lifestyle, but they prompt awareness of your daily consumption in other tasks you perform each day. Just remembering to turn off your office light when you leave or printing on both sides of the paper are small, everyday steps in the right direction!

Footnotes

To download the GreenPrint software, visit www.printgreener.com.
To read the entire press release, visit www.printgreener.com/press-releases/GreenPrintXeroxPR.html.
Costs about $90; available from www.wattstopper.com.
Several models are available, with prices ranging from $32 to $45; available at http://catalog.bitsltd.us/power_strips/.

Author Biographies

Christopher James is a press officer and IT manager in the NYU Office of Public Affairs, where he manages the College of Dentistry, College of Nursing, and School of Continuing and Professional Studies portfolios, and is responsible for the management of computer systems for his colleagues.