One of the most frequent questions asked by anyone running an office or their own business is how they can reduce the amount of money they spend on inks and toners for their printers.

Although HP printers and their consumables are renowned for their great quality and reliability, the original inks and toners are expensive if you buy them directly from source. As an on-going, essential business purchase, there’s no way you can avoid buying ink, so you simply have to do it more cheaply.

Compatibility is key

One really effective way to reduce your spending on inks is to buy compatible printer cartridges. You can buy cartridges that will fit your printer perfectly, and that will contain the same inks, but that are not branded by the original manufacturer, which makes them significantly cheaper. If you choose to buy compatibles, then make sure you seek out a reputable online seller that only deals in high quality inks and cartridges; better still, ask if the seller offers warranties and has a generous returns policy, just for your peace of mind.

Sometimes it’s best if you separate

A recent change in the printer ink market is the provision of separate tanks for each colour and this is a really big help if you’re looking to reduce your costs. Older cartridges tended to have all the colours housed in the same cartridge, so when one colour ran out the entire thing was rendered useless and you had to throw away unused inks.

Thankfully, in light of environmental concerns, companies like Hewlett Packard started to sell colours – black, cyan, magenta and yellow – separately so you only need to change out the colour that’s used up. Some printers now have tanks for light magenta and light cyan to make image quality and colour reproduction even better.

Recycle your cartridges more

The manufacture of ink and toner cartridges is very energy and resource-expensive, with the process needing lots of oil, copper and other valuable, not always sustainable materials. Even worse is the fact that millions of spent cartridges end up in landfill each year, or hidden away in the storage rooms of offices and homes, never to be seen again (or at least, not for a few years). One way to reduce the impact on the environment is to make sure you recycle your used cartridges. This is doubly beneficial because not only does it keep them from landfill, but you can also send old cartridges back to your manufacturer or seller and get a discount on your next order.

Bulk buy

Most online sellers and original manufacturers sell bulk packs of ink and toner cartridges, so if you use a lot of Hewlett Packard ink every month, buying multi-packs will make a big difference to the amount you spend on it. Just make sure you only buy as much as you’ll use within the shelf life of your inks, or you could end up binning the excess.

 

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