All-in-One Printers Save Money and the Environment

What is an all-in-one printer or multifunction printer (MFP)? About.com has this to say, "When you've got a small home office, an all-in-one printer, also known as a multifunction printer, is a great buy. All-in-one printers can print, scan, copy, and sometimes fax."

Theses devices tend to be reasonably priced and can come as inkjets or laser printers. While all-in-ones are usually larger than a stand-alone printer, they combine 3-5 devices (some also have wi-fi) into one machine and therefore can save a tremendous amount of space, money, and resources to build them. They can be a great option for a smaller office which may not need or want traditional full-sized, enterprise-quality office machines.

In the first post of this two-part series, we'll review the green benefits of investing in these smaller, multifunction machines as well as helping to reduce overhead costs for your nonprofit.

Green Benefits

Reduce energy use

If you only have one machine idling instead of four, you will save a considerable amount of energy.

According to Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (see table below), the average inkjet printer, inkjet fax machine, flatbed scanner, and copier together use 30 watts while in standby mode and the average laser versions use 156 watts. (The average set of these four inkjet devices still uses approximately 10.5 watts when they are OFF.) Compare these numbers with the average multifunction devices and you see a savings of 21 watts in the inkjets and a whopping 107 watts in the laser variety.

Reduce toxins

If they are only building one machine instead of four, the manufacturers of these devices are obviously saving a tremendous amount of plastic and other hazardous materials. Although several of the top manufacturers now claim that they are RoHS Compliant, which restricts the use of cadmium, mercury, lead, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), it doesn’t mean that those toxic elements and others are not used at all.

Reduce paper

If you fax directly from your desktop (no printout) or you can scan documents and email them instead of faxing, you will reduce the amount of paper you use. Hopefully, whoever receives your file won't need to print it out. These devices can help you to keep or transfer documents to electronic form, therefore reducing the need to purchase, store, and print on paper.

Other Benefits

•    Less space is required to house one machine versus four or five individual machines.
•    Lower cost of purchasing one machine instead of several purchases or leases, as well as lower maintenance and ink costs. In addition, the decreased wattage, will lower your energy bills.
•    These devices can help you easily store documents, images, and files electronically.

Green Usage Tips

Buying green is one factor, however did you know that by changing a few simple use habits you can be greener and save much more money? Follow these tips from ConsumerReports.org to use your device(s) most efficiently and effectively. Many manufacturers also offer tips for using their products in a more earth-friendly way.

Next week, in part 2 of this two-part series, I will point you to some helpful buying guides and to several of the top-rated all-in-one printers.

Data

Standby Power Summary Table: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 

"We measured the standby power of many, many, products. The table below summarizes those measurements, with the average, minimum, and maximum power levels observed while in standby. Power consumption is listed in "watts" (W). See the FAQs for a detailed explanation. The "Count" refers to the number of products that we measured."

*Combined = printer + fax + scanner + copier
^Calculations are my own derived from LBNL data.