HP's print cartridge packaging goes green

Hewlett-Packard announced on Thursday that it has redesigned the packaging for its printer cartridges to make it friendlier to the environment.

The redesigns feature smaller and lighter packaging that contains more recycled content. These changes, according to HP, will cut down on 15 million pounds of materials over the course of 2007, including 6.8 million pounds of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic.

Overall, the company estimated that it will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 37 million pounds. Because shipping containers will be able to accommodate many more packages, truck traffic for cartridge shipments is expected to be cut down by 1.5 million miles this year. Company calculations indicated that is the equivalent impact of 3,600 cars operating over the same period.

For example, HP LaserJet toner cartridges now use 45 percent of the packaging material that they once did, and a shipping container can now accommodate an average of 203 of them instead of 144. The reduced container size not only cuts down on the number of emission-producing vehicles needed to ship the cartridges to retailers, it also frees up more shelf space for retailers.

HP, which entered an initiative with the World Wildlife Fund in November to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, added in a statement that this is by no means the first step the company has taken toward tweaking its product packaging with environmental sustainability in mind. The overall package weight for its inkjet cartridge multipacks, for example, has been reduced by 80 percent since 2003.

Thus far, the eco-friendly redesigns apply only to ink and toner print cartridges shipped throughout North America.

[pmc8]

Lower prices?

Now if only they could make their inkjet cartridge prices "friendlier" to the consumer...

More recycled content and less packaging materials mean lower cartridge prices, right? Didn't think so. Go Kodak.

[bob donut]

not saving the environment...

The real reason they reduced the sizeof the printer cartridge was so that you have to go buy them again. I have an old HP printer that uses 45 mL containers and won't ever replace it until it breaks because modern printeres only hold 23 mL per container but sell at 75% the old cartrdige cost. Do the math and you're losing money.

[Truth Speaker]

Business exists to extract profit

So what if they shrink their product to make more profit?

Capitalism is founded on the socially reckless belief that value can rightly be extracted from society by any means deemed expedient without regard for the consequences. This approach allows us to manufacture, promote, and sell poorly designed, harmful, unhealthy, thoughtless products under the banner of "freedom", thereby causing massive long-term societal damage.

Though apologists call this valueless approach to resource exchange the best system possible, they are only repeating propaganda that advocates the accumulation of individual private wealth without concern for the implications of the methods used to obtain that wealth or its social results. For example, there is no consideration given to the widespread harm inflicted on society as a result of media, junk food, mechanistic behavioral demands, pollution, economic deceit, and other fundamental aspects of modern capitalism.

Capitalism is a jail from which we must escape.