I started producing typseset work with a typewriter. I can remember in Year 7 borrowing my father’s typewriter and typing out my homework one night. I used plenty of white out and also found how to score through which was quicker than whiting out, ligning up again and retyping. I had had no typing lessons and it took me hours to type two or three paragrahs.

Around that time we got our first home computer which came with a dot matrix printer. My typing improved and it was much easier to edit before printing. They still have a dot matrix printer at work an the sound of it brings back some nostalgia, but not a lot! When I hit uni first time round a friend I was doing some typesetting for had a laser printer and she let me print out uni assignments, one page per minute and in courier font as that then made the assigment look like it had been typed “by my father’s secretary.” The fact that my father was dead was beside the point! It was believed that if it looked like a laser print job I would lose marks.

I got my first (black and white!) inkjet printer about 18 years ago. I remember it was a Mac and I got it with the computer (Mac Classic II!). I had that computer for over 5 years and the printer stayed with it. When I upgraded computers I upgraded printers, this time to a colour inkjet. This one again lasted the life of the computer which was again over 5 years.

Almost 5 years ago when I upgraded computers yet again, a new inkjet printer. This also served me well with ink readily available and in the end I was refilling cartridges myself.

13 months ago I went to get new ink for it and found it was so much cheaper to get a new printer. So I spet $50 on a multifunction inkjet. It was on sale and I got cash back. Because I am a nazi when it comes to letting the kids print (I got sick of picking up pieces of paper with half pritned Dr Who images and incompleted word searches) we have only just used up the ink. It has been really useful using the copying feature on the printer, and I think I scanned something once!

So today I go to buy ink cartridges. Apart from not having the right ones, I discovered they would cost $60 for the cartridges required. A new printer cost $59 (less 10% staff discount!).

It does irk me that it is cheaper to buy a new printer than to buy new ink. MIML™ and I will pull the old one apart and examine circuit boards and stuff (well he will and I’ll look on and pretend I understand what he is showing me!) and then no doubt we will microwave parts of it to see what colour arcing we get! I know small things! Oh and don’t worry, it’s not my microwave! Hehe!

I know we live in a consumerist age. I work in retail and am told every day that if a kettle breaks down after 13 months a customer is more than happy to just buy a new one. Heck if a small electrical appliance breaks down within a warranty period it is just replaced anyway. Major electical suppliers must have warehouses full of faulty goods that just go to landfill. I know it is unreasonable to try and fix some of these items, but it is still such a waste that these become throw away items. Yet no one really seems to mind.

I feel guilty for recycling paper, plastic, tin, aluminium and glass, and taking all the time to separate my rubbish each week, yet after 13 months buy a new printer for mainly economic reasons. If I purchased a $200 printer then I probably would have purchased new ink, but when printers are so cheap and my needs are really not that great when I can use a printer at uni if I need to print large chunks of things then I purchased what I needed. In 12 months time when it is unlikely I will have access to uni printers (yes I will be finished by then!) then I will consider a different printer. I did think about getting a cheaper laser printer, but the kids do colour printing for homework. Heck in year 2 they have homework that requires typing and printing. When I was in year 2… no let’s not go there!

It is sad though that so often economic constraints determine environmental impact. I suppose at least I am aware of this and awareness is a step in the right direction.

Tags: environment, printers

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 5:27 pm and is filed under greenie stuff!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.