Cartridge-free printers are easy on the environment and your budget
27/9/2023
Translation: Eva Francis
Printers aren’t exactly what you'd call environmentally friendly. At least those without cartridges help reduce waste. I’ve taken a closer look at how environmentally friendly printers by HP, Canon and Epson are.
The most ecological way of printing is not printing at all. But even in our digitalised world, going completely paperless is almost impossible. However, there are more ecological ways of printing than there used to be – with cartridge-free devices, for instance. As a bonus, they’ll also save you money.
But what else are the manufacturers doing for the environment? I tested cartridge-free devices by Epson, HP and Canon for their environmental impact. The manufacturers chose these printers and kindly provided them to me for this test. So this isn’t a review on printing quality or features – unless they have an impact on how environmentally friendly a printer is. If you want to see the general specs, check out the data sheet. From a quality point of view, I’d say all these printers are suitable for office use. My first impression is that the Canon printer has the best quality for photos, followed by the HP and the Epson.
Cardboard vs. polystyrene
Packaging has a comparatively small impact on a product’s environmental footprint. Still, it’s nice to see manufacturers pay attention to it. The packaging and padding of the Canon printer has the least plastic elements. In addition, the Japanese company uses recycled cardboard instead of expanded polystyrene for the insulation material – unlike Epson and HP.
Source: Kevin Hofer
Polystyrene manufacturers regularly claim the material is more environmentally friendly than cardboard, (as in this article, for instance). However, the opposite seems to be true (according to this and this article). The advantage of polystyrene is that it’s lighter than cardboard. This has an important effect on transportation, as printers cover long distances. More weight also means more energy consumption. The printers I tested are made in China (HP), Vietnam (Canon) and the Philippines (Epson). The latter is 10,000 kilometres away from Switzerland as the crow flies.
Bottle vs. cartridge
Before I start using the printers, I need to fill them with ink, which the manufacturers supply in plastic bottles. If you’re one of those people who suspects ink cartridges aren’t filled to the top, rest assured – you can see how much ink is in these bottles.
One thing’s for sure: these ink bottles generate significantly less waste than ink cartridges. A narrow cartridge contains between 10 and 15 millilitres (ml) of ink. The smallest bottles hold four and a half to seven times as much. In addition, many cartridges are equipped with electronic components so they can be recognised by the printer. Therefore, bottles are much better from an ecological point of view. And they’re cheaper, too.
HP and Epson bottles with coloured ink each contain 70 ml; those with black ink 130 ml. Canon’s bottles come with 135 ml for colour and 170 ml for black, but cost more. Here’ a table with the current cost (as at 21 September 2023) of each bottle by price per 100 ml.
In absolute terms, Epson ink bottles are the cheapest. But in addition to the purchase price, it also depends on how efficiently the printers use the ink, i.e. how many pages can be printed with 100 ml. To find this out, I’m not going to print out tens of thousands of pages – for obvious ecological reasons – but am going with the official details manufacturers provide.
The following table shows how many pages you can print with 100 ml of ink. For coloured ink, I’ve divided the number of pages by three so that I’m calculating with 100 ml of coloured mixed ink. I’m aware that some colours are used more than others when printing, but I don’t want to make things more complicated than necessary.
The HP printer is supposed to print the most pages with 100 ml of ink. What does this mean for the price? As the price per page is tiny, this table displays the price per 100 pages.
At 12 cents per 100 pages of black ink, HP is the cheapest. Canon costs more than twice as much. When it comes to colours, there’s no big difference between the three printers. However, compared to classic ink cartridges, these ink bottles are all very cost-efficient. I did the same calculation with HP’s best-selling ink cartridge, the 953XL. The result? You pay 2.57 francs for 100 pages of black ink – in other words, over twenty times more than with HP’s cartridge-free version.
Source: Kevin Hofer
They’re all energy-efficient
Another aspect that plays a role from an ecological point of view is power consumption. To get to the bottom of this, I measured the power consumption of all three printers. Here’s the result:
For most of its life, a printer is switched off. Therefore, the numbers in the first column are the most interesting. The Canon printer is the only one that doesn’t use any power when it’s switched off. It also uses the least power in standby mode – which means the screen is switched off – and with the screen on. However, the differences are small. If you leave the HP printer in standby all the time, it will cost you about two francs more per year than with the Canon printer – assuming an electricity price of 25 cent/kWh.
Now let’s look at the power consumption when printing. The Epson consumes the fewest watts, while Canon and HP are head to head. What if I’m printing 100 pages? In this case, we need to include the print speed in ISO (monochrome). This shows how many watt-hours (Wh) the printers consume when printing 100 pages in black ink.
Turns out these three printers aren’t more economical than older devices. My 6+ year old Brother MFC-J5330DW printer shows similar power consumption as the HP when it comes to all measurements.
Power-saving features
All three models allow you to set after how much time of inactivity they go into standby or switch off completely. The Canon Eco features also includes a timer, which means it automatically switches on in the morning and off in the evening.
Source: Kevin Hofer
How about recycling?
All three printers can be recycled – I assume all three equally well, or badly. I’ll ignore any CO₂ certificates that manufacturers acquire as part of their sustainability efforts.
Why? Manufacturing and supply chains are difficult to assess, to say the least. I can’t verify them. They’re simply too complex. Canon, HP and Epson all have sustainability programmes, but I can’t judge how impactful they are.
Source: Image: Kevin Hofer
When it comes to electronic products, less is always more. They’re a burden on the environment at every stage of their life. From extraction of raw materials to production, delivery, use and disposal – all stages require resources.
Cartridge-free wins
The truth is, the most ecological way to print is not to own a printer at all. But that’s not always possible. Therefore, it’s good to see that printer manufacturers are striving to make their devices more ecological. Apart from their sustainability efforts, the biggest help in this regard is the elimination of printer cartridges. Printing with ink bottles instead of cartridges also costs less for us consumers.
The power consumption of printers has remained about the same over the last few years. That’s no improvement, but also not a huge issue, as printers don’t use massive amounts of power. However, it’s best to switch them off when they’re not in use and add a power rail to prevent any power consumption.
I find it difficult to identify a clear winner. HP wins when measuring the number of pages per 100 ml, but Canon’s best when it comes to packaging and power consumption. Epson’s always in the middle. So they’re all more or less on the same level.
Personally, I’ll definitely buy a cartridge-free printer when the one I have stops working. Until then, however, I’ll keep it. I replace the cartridges in my printer once a year, so the financial burden and the damage to the environment aren’t massive.
Kevin Hofer
Senior Editor
kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.chFrom big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.
