Are we headed toward printer ink cartridges shortages?

The devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11 has forced many printer cartridge manufacturers to suspend operations in their printer cartridge plants. Canon has reported significant damages to to one of their inkjet printer manufacturing plants and has suspended work in eight of its plants. Kyocera Mita has ceased work at two of its facilities.

HP gets components for its LaserJet printer engines and toner cartridges from a partner with manufacturing facilities in Japan. It’s quite possible that the partner’s plants have been closed.

While the majority of printer ink cartridges and toner cartridges are not produced in Japan, many of the parts that are used to make cartridges and printers are produced in Japan. The countries inability to produce these parts as well as their inability to distribute any parts that have been manufactured (due to infrastructure damages) will make it difficult for companies like HP and Canon to maintain a cartridge production schedule that is anything close to what they were able to do prior to the earthquake and tsunami.

Personally, I don’t foresee any impact to our consumers because of the damages. There are a few reasons. First, I believe production schedules prior to the damages have created an adequate supply of printer ink to sustain our needs. Second, the HP’s and Canon’s of the world have (we hope) contingency plans in place to continue sourcing the parts they need for cartridges. They will make sure they get the parts they need so they can maintain sales of their most profitable product.

Last, a slight change in our printing habits will guarantee we don’t have any shortages. Start buying remanufactured printer cartridges or get your empty ink cartridge refilled. Remanufactured cartridges are producted from existing empty cartridges. There are plenty of those in the world. When you refill your empty cartridge, all you need is the ink. There’s not shortage of that either.

Good luck Japan. We’re thinking of you.

One of our Facebook friends recently let us know that HP might be discontinuing the HP 45 (51645A) and HP 78 (C6578DN) cartridges. She shared that she was recently at Sam’s Club and found signs that said these two cartridges would be discontinued as of March 31, 2011. She also shared that she called HP to find out if the discontinuation was true, that HP would not confirm or deny her inquiry, and she felt she was given the “run around”.

I’m honored that her next step was to see what I knew and, since, I don’t buy in to the “run around” I got down to some research.

I first did a web search to see if HP had released any information pertaining to these cartridges. I did not find anything specific from HP, but a search result from Walmart.com showed:

Shop Low Prices on: HP 45 Black Inkjet Cartridge (51645A) : Computers. … This item is being discontinued. Availability is limited. …

A similar result showed for the HP C6578DN cartridge.

Shop Low Prices on: HP 78 Tri-color Inket Cartridge (C6578DN) : Computers. … This item is being discontinued. Availability is limited. …

My web search didn’t leave me with much more than I had begun with. At that point I figured I would get on the phone and find out from HP directly. A friendly rep confirmed that, yes, the HP 45 and HP 78 cartridges are being discontinued. She did not have a concrete date because HP wants to sell all of the cartridges it has manufactured.

Here’s my take.

Walmart, Sam’s Club, and other retail stores will be quick to discontinue selling these two cartridges because at the end of this month HP will not longer sell the 45 and 78 to them. Depending on the agreements HP has with other retail stores, the cartridges may be available in stores for a while longer. But, in time the only way to get these cartridges will be online. HP will continue to sell them through their web site until they are completely out of stock. Once that happens these two cartridges will be hard to come by and some folks will be forced to upgrade their printers.

The 51645A and C6578DN cartridges have been around for about 10-15 years. HP has not made a printer that uses these cartridges for years. Printer cartridges technology has come a long way since these cartridges were HP’s top sellers.

Either stock up or upgrade, but either way we’re saying goodbye to these cartridges!

Going green is all the rage these these days. Most everyone wants to do their part to help ease the burden we are placing on Mother Earth. Each industry has adopted certain systems and released products that are earth friendly. The printer cartridge industry is doing it’s part – with soy ink and soy toner.

Standard printer ink and toner are petroleum (oil) based. The petroleum is then combined with other man made chemicals which allows you to put all those words and pictures on pages. Soy based ink and toner is touted as eco-friendly because it is made from soy beans, which are grown as crops throughout the world. If it’s grown on a farm it’s got to be good, right? Maybe not.

Before we all jump on the soy ink bandwagon, let’s take a closer look.

Soy based ink and toner is 35% soy. The remaining 65% of the ink is made from petroleum. The majority of the ink and toner is petroleum based.  This is not necessarily a bad thing. To make a product green you have to start somewhere and then move toward the 100% recycled level. It’s taken paper products a while to get there. Hard core environmentalists will say that 65% is way to high. And, yes it is a high number, but being 35% soy based is not to bad either. Hundreds of millions of ink and toner cartridges are produced each year. If 35% of the ink and toner that goes in to these is soy based, our oil consumption goes down by a millions of gallons.

Beside less oil use, soy ink is better than petroleum because it has low levels of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s). VOC’s release toxic emissions, which cause air pollution. Additionally, soy toner is made from a byproduct of soy bean farming. A byproduct is a secondary or incidental product deriving from a manufacturing process. No new crops are needed in order to produce ink and toner. They simply use what is left from the standard soy harvesting and processing process.

So, the printer ink industry is getting greener. Soy sounds like a pretty good product to use. But, what happens as the demand for soy based ink grows? Are there an negative effects on the it’s ability to remain eco-friendly?

Some would say no, but only because they are considering the ink itself. What about the resources that go in to growing soy beans?  Most don’t trace back to the origin of the products used to make the ink.

As the demand for soy ink grows, more soy bean crops are going to have to be planted in order to create the byproduct needed. History has demonstrated what happens when farmers are pushed to produce more of a certain crop – they get less ec0-friendly. The need for machines is increased, farming practices that aren’t earth friendly are adopted, harsher pesticides are introduced, and growth enhancing chemicals begin to be used. None of these things have a beneficial effect on the environment. If we trace back to its source, is soy ink still eco-friendly?

Currently the majority of soy bean crops are planted with genetically modified soy beans. Some believe that these types of beans are detrimental to the environment. The process of genetically modifying a crop introduces new components in to the genetic make up of the crop, thereby increasing the levels of VOC’s.

Finally, the planting of soy beans, as a crop, is the major reason for deforestation along the Amazon River, in Brazil. Forests are being cleared to create land to plant soy beans on, the same beans that are used to created so ink. We are all well aware of the concern over deforestation (global warming).

So, is soy ink good or bad? Are you looking from the surface level or tracing back to the origin of the products used to make soy based ink? You get to decide, but take a second to let me know your decision is. Thanks!