Ideal Bite

Post-Consumer Paper in conjunction with eco-cartridges can help green the office in significant ways. Always look for USA made products while keeping in mind reduce, recycle and reuse! www.ecogreenoffice.com

Consider also using an eco-friendly font found here http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html It puts holes in each character like swiss cheese that can't be seen unless you increase the font to a pretty big size.

The last time I checked, there is no soy ink that does not contain petroleum. Most have up to 50% petroleum still. Soy is a step in the right direction, but I think it is misleading to promote soy ink and make it sound like there is no petroleum in it. All petroleum contains solvents which contain VOCs. There is another option, for commercial printers at least, which is 100% vegetable-based ink (from bean and seed esters). This has no petroleum. I work for a green printer, one that the Printing Industries of America have called "unique in the country and beyond" because we have eliminated all hazardous chemicals and petroleum from our entire printing process. Usually you offer multiple options in your "wanna try" section and I was disappointed to see only one when there are many others that are doing at least as much and in some cases more. Chemicals are the really hazardous part about printing and I think it's dangerous to call a printer green who still pollutes and endangers the health of workers and others but uses soy ink and recycled paper. Kari McLennan Consolidated Printing

Here here for EcoGreenOffice! I was going to post about you, too, so thanks for beating me to the punch. I think actually better than GreenerPrinter, and a local choice for me in Colorado.

Slashdot has an article about soy based ink/toners today. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/04/2224243&art_pos=6 Does Slashdot have an idealbiter in their midst?

Great tips!! I've been using a green printer here in New Jersey for all my marketing collateral and promo. They do an outstanding job with the printing AND customer service. Highly recommend Printing Responsibly in Rockaway, NJ. http://www.printresponsibly.com Janet

A question for anyone who might know - what about the fact that most (maybe all?) of the soy ink produced is from soy beans that are genetically engineered? Genetically engineered soy bean farms also mostly from factory farms? Anyone have more info? Thanks, Jeannie

What a lousy idea! Use a soy ink cartridge one time and trash it? So it's better to fill a landfill with plastic cartridges that never decompose? Not! I will stick with real ink that I can fill at least 5 times. Until you can provide refillable soy ink for cartridges this is just an idea for the circular file.

I work in the advertising world where we have to do a lot of printing. I was told by one of our eco printers that soy-based ink is no longer eco friendly. There has been an over-dependency on soy crops, so farmers are clearing forests to make way for more soy crops. With this new demand for soy based inks, communities are losing soy that was intended to be used for food. I'm not sure how true this info is, but it makes sense.

We use linseed oil based inks. Soy inks skim really quickly (another problem), and doesn't print letterpress and offset as well, so there is more paper waste.