New Inkless Printer May Revolutionize The Home Printing Industry

2010-02-14

In recent years people all over the world have become increasingly aware of the sensitive condition of our planet. There has been a green movement all over the world. People are becoming smarter and more active in reducing, reusing and recycling. The amount of waste that ends up in landfills every year is alarming. Every single one of us needs to do our part to help save our planet. We only have one earth and if we are not more cautious in our daily actions, we will continue to see the destruction of plant and animal species, as well as the deterioration of our ozone layer.

It is surprising to found out how much the little things have an impact on our carbon footprint, or the effect that our lifestyle and actions have on the emission of harmful carbon dioxide. By throwing away something as seemingly insignificant as a used ink cartridge, we are creating plastic waste that can take over a thousand years to fully decompose. Luckily, our technology is constantly advancing at an amazing rate and we are close to eliminating the problem of plastic waste from used printer ink cartridges.

Xerox, possibly the world's biggest printer and office supply company, is in the process of developing a printing process that would eliminate the use of printer ink. This new technology would revolutionize the printing world as we know it, allowing us the print and erase on reusable paper over and over again. If you can imagine the amount of paper used in the average home office today, you can see the huge impact that this new technology would have on the reduction of paper and printer ink cartridge waste.

Let's take a look at the "history of going paperless" and how this new technology actually works. In the 1980s there was a huge transition from the typewriter to the personal computer screen. Documents could now be typed and viewed without wasting paper. Currently the idea of the LCD, or liquid crystal display, is being implemented into the development of the inkless printer. The latest technology, when complete, will provide us with a type of paper in which you can print and erase just by applying a special kind of light to it. This paper would be able to keep information for a short amount of time, only to be erased and used again. For the home printing industry, this technology would not only save money in printing supplies but would greatly reduce the amount of waste produced.