Think Before You Print

"Help protect our environment by only printing this email if absolutely necessary" is the sort of message that one sees at the foot of almost every email you receive from a company, whether they are a major conglomerate or the local plumber. I doubt that this warning has ever made anyone think, "Hey, you know what? I don't need to print this email after all!" On the other hand the totally exorbitant price of ink cartridges might.

For one reason or another we print a fair bit at home. There are tickets for the BBC radio shows we go to, there are letters from Sarah's school that need to be printed so part can be completed and returned to apply for something and Val prints some work related items (although blessedly we can claim some of the cost of these prints back). I also print things related to football and now and then we print a map rather than drag the A-Z out with us or rely on the map on a phone. And whenever I do print something a little dialog box appears on the monitor; "Ink is running low" it says, and it seems to say this almost as soon as a new print cartridge has been installed and I have run off two or three prints. There really is a tyranny around print cartridges. Not to put too fine a point on it we are being ripped off. Some years ago I heard a story, and it may be apocryphal, it may be an urban myth, but basically what it said was that manufacturers put an expiry date into print cartridges so that once installed they will register as empty and not print after a given period of time whether they have been used or not. True or not, it certainly seems to be the case that once I have installed a new cartridge, a week or so later, whether I have printed one page or a hundred, that message about the ink running low is there. Of course I ignore that message until the evidence of my own eyes suggests that the cartridge needs changing because the quality of the prints has deteriorated to the point where it is unreadable, and I'm sure most people do the same. On the other hand I have heard that some manufacturers (and trawling round the internet, it appears that Hewlett Packard are the principle offenders), make cartridges that steadfastly refuse to work once a certain period of time has elapsed regardless of how many pages have been printed.

There was actually a segment in the TV programme, The Men Who Made Us Spend aired on BBC 2 recently that showed that with commercial print cartridges there is a counter that can be reset to extend the life of the cartridge; doubtless domestic ones have a counter too, if only you could get at it. I was thinking about all this just the other day when I went out to buy new cartridges for our Canon printer. Having recently bought some stationery in WH Smith, I had a money off coupon worth 20% off the price of a cartridge, so I duly went into Smiths and picked one up. It was £49.99 for a double pack containing both a black cartridge and a colour one. That couldn't be right surely? It was and with my discount I was still being asked to pay forty quid, so I put it back on the shelf and walked out. I went to Ryman. The same pack in their shop was £39.99, the same price as WH Smith after the discount. Buy two packs in Ryman and the second would be discounted by 25%, grand total £69.98. It was still an horrendous amount of money but I paid it anyway, got home and did some cursory research. I realised that I should have done the research first, it would have saved me time and money.

A blister pack containing a black cartridge and a colour one from Ryman costs, without any sort of discount, £39.99. PC World currently sell a Canon Pixma iP2850 printer for £34.99 and if my experience of buying printers is typical, they will throw in a print cartridge assuming that one doesn't come in the box as standard. Meanwhile PC World have a bundle including the printer, black and colour cartridges and paper that comes in at £59. So for the cost of two cartridges from WH Smith (£49.99), plus £10 I can have a brand new printer, cartridges and paper.

Canon Pixma iP2850 £34.99

Cartridges £49.99 in WH Smith

So on the whole buying my print cartridges in WH Smith or Ryman is actually pretty stupid as they can be had much, much cheaper elsewhere, particularly online and I confess to a lack of forethought in going out and recklessly buying cartridges from a high street retailer; stupid, stupid, stupid! I stewed about it. I had obviously been seduced by the minuscule discount that Ryman had offered which had appeared almost competitive against the fortune Smiths wanted. PC World charge only £29 for the same product; Amazon, Tesco and Argos charge twenty one quid plus some change. I took the cartridges back to Ryman and they gave me a refund. They asked me why I was returning the cartridges, offering the option "Is it to do with the price?" suggesting that they (the staff in the shop) know that the price is not competitive.

Setting aside my own stupidity in paying through the nose for my ink, the fact remains that home printing is a complete and utter scam. If you book tickets to a show or a concert you pay a handling fee and postage; now that many sellers offer the option to print your tickets at home you still have to pay a fee for the privilege of using your own ink to print the damned thing.  Even more extortionate is printing photos at home. Ten or so years ago when I bought my first digital camera it came with a dedicated photo printer. The print cartridge expired after less than a dozen pictures. The cost of a new one would have been many times greater than taking my memory card down to Boots or Snappy Snaps and getting my prints done there. Does anyone other than the serious photographer print at home? I doubt it; for the casual snapper the cost is prohibitive.

The manufacturers of ink cartridges are notorious for reducing the amount of ink in their products while maintaining the same price. Either they or the retailers now seem to be going for the double whammy and reducing the content and increasing the price. On one occasion I tried to economise by buying the shop's own brand cartridge. It was certainly cheaper but it didn't even seem to last as long as the printer manufacturer's product so any saving was marginal at best.

What to do? As far as I can see, the choices are to print less, shop around for cheap cartridges or just buy a new printer every time the ink runs out, which may not be environmentally friendly but might just be less expensive.

Save money, don't print this page. Thank You!