What if gas cost $ 5,000 a gallon and your fuel tank leaked?

Printer Ink costs that much (and more) and often we throw out cartridges before we need to and waste printed materials in so many other ways.

So here's how some businesses are responding :

a) Changing Employee Behavior. The CIO at Biltmore Hotels has consolidated  number of printers  down and instead added  high-end copiers which allow for easier scanning and distribution to multiple users in digital format. He also has a paperless HR department. Some companies encourage their employees to use, for internal use printing, their printer's Draft mode. (Other printers offer FastPrint, General Office Color Mode,  monochrome and other lower resolution print). Also, 2 sided copies and 2 printed pages on one can bring more savings for internal use copies. Others do not allow their remote employees to buy print supplies at retail stores, but instead order from a pre-negotiated catalog. (I recently needed a drum for my Brother laser. Office Depot wanted $ 175 after tax. Buy.com shipped to me for under $ 100 within 3 days.)

b) Changing Procurement behavior. Some are moving to "disposable" printers. In the "blades cost more than razor" economics in print that often makes sense. Others are encouraging smaller remote offices or work-at-home employees to swap laser printers for inkjet printers whose consumables are far more expensive. Still others are outsourcing print management at aggressive price per page metrics. If the outsourcer cannot offer significant economies of scale in print consumables, it may be just "paving the old cow paths".  Others keep print in-house but buy "compatible" consumables. They do so in spite of significant FUD (that alternatives have poor quality, negate printer warranty etc) from the OEM. I was shocked to read a Dataquest analysis which shows compatible and gray market consumables exceed those from the OEM in a growing market like India. I knew it was growing, but not by that much.

c) Changing Marketing/Sales behavior.  The numbers on marketing junk mail are staggering . "This year, your mail slot will accept roughly 572 pieces of it, and every letter carrier in America will slog nearly 18 tons of junk mail—roughly the weight of four adult elephants—up to the mailboxes on his route. In order to crank out each year's 4 million tons of junk mail, 100 million trees will have to be cut down, 3 million cars' worth of energy consumed and 30 billion gallons of polluted water will circle the drain." Most of this junk mail does not even get opened. Then there is management of  color brochures, other collateral and business cards. And negotiated rates with local printers so field sales people do not always print at last minute prices at Kinkos. As 3D printing starts to take off - expect even more waste. Unless they behave like the apparel company I know which has been moving away from samples of new shoes to 3D graphical depictions.

There are plenty more individual "best practices" which show companies are increasingly focused on the leaky print fuel tank. It's good to see companies going green while also saving green on printing costs.