Recycle More Than Ever with Ontario's Blue Bin Program

Ontarians have been using the Blue Bin program for many years. Since it's official launch in 2004, there are over 95 percent of Ontarians who take part in this program today. More than 900,000 tonnes of waste have been diverted from landfills as a result of this program. People now have consciously made an effort to recycle more than ever.

Even with the Blue bin program's outstanding achievements in reducing waste, some are still unsure on what really goes into the Blue bin. To help with this confusion, here's a list of items that go in the blue bin and ones that do not.

Items that CAN Be Recycled (Durham region)

• Glass Bottles and Jars
• Aluminum Cans and Clean Pie Trays
• Steel cans (metal beverage and food cans)
• Empty Aerosol Cans (with lids removed)
• Empty Paint Cans (with lids removed)
• Tubs and Lids (containers for spreads, yoghurt, cottage cheese)
• Newspapers, magazines, catalogues, telephone books and paperbacks
• Household papers (letters, envelopes, bulk mailings)
• Corrugated Cardboard
• Boxboard Cartons (cereal, tissue and detergent boxes)
• Gable Top Cartons (cream, milk, juice)
• Drink cartons (juice, soup and wine boxes)
• Plastic bottles with a twist-off top (up to 10 liters in size)

Items that CANNOT Be Recycled (Durham region)

• Glass (drinking glasses, dishes, crystal, window glass, light bulbs)
• Aluminum Foil
• Plastic Film (e.g. grocery or shopping bags)
• Styrofoam Packaging Polystyrene (nursery trays, clear muffin trays)
• Containers larger than 10 litres in size

This is a general list of items that can or cannot be put in the blue bin. Each municipality may have a slightly different list. However, all have a general idea of what goes in the Blue bin. Hopefully, this list will clarify confusion and will allow for proper waste disposal.

This article was brought to you by IMS Inc., one of Canada’s leading suppliers of the highest quality manufactured laser printer, inkjet and ribbon cartridges.Visit http://www.imsinkspot.com.

Tips on Reducing Carbon Footprint

What is carbon footprint? According to Clayton Sandell, from ABC news, it is "the measure of the amount of carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere as you go about your daily life."

Each one of us emits carbon dioxide to the atmosphere while we use normal gadgets at home and at work. The carbon is emitted by the power plants that produce the power to run or recharge electronic and mechanical equipment.

By following these simple tips, we can make our world a cleaner and safer place to live.

1. Unplug electronics when not in use.
2. Turn the lights off in rooms that are not in use
3. Do not leave the faucet running while brushing your teeth.
4. Print on both sides of the paper
5. Use refillable ink cartridges
6. Use recyclable paper
7. Reuse envelopes, folder or binders
8. Carpool to work
9. Maintain proper tire pressure to save on gas
10. Do not leave your car idle for too long
11. Walk, bike, or take public transportation.

The higher our carbon footprint, the more pollutants we release in the atmosphere. These are just a few of the things we can change in our habits in order to save our atmosphere.

This article was brought to you by IMS Inc., one of Canada’s leading suppliers of the highest quality manufactured laser printer, inkjet and ribbon cartridges. Visit http://www.imsinkspot.com.

How to Choose the Smart Printer that Saves Energy

Many businesses make an effort to reduce the use of paper and printing. However, we cannot achieve a 100% paperless office, at least not in the near future. This makes it important to choose the best printer or printers that not only use ink sparingly, but also saves energy.

Some appliances including printers have Energy star symbols attached to them. For printers to qualify for this symbol they would need to:

1.      Consume a set level of energy per week (Total Electricity Consumption
Approach – TEC), or;
2.      Must automatically enter low-power modes of a prescribed level (Operating
Mode Approach – OM).

These two criteria are reliant on the type of printer engine, product speed, and product size.

Under the OM Approach, a standard sized inkjet printer with a speed of 25 inches per minute should have:

1.      Go into sleep mode after 30 minutes of idle time.
2.      Consume a maximum of 1W of Standby power.
3.      Consume no more than 3W of power in Sleep mode.

Choosing an appropriate printer technology and capability can help reduce your business’ energy consumption. For example, if you do not require high quality images or printing speed then you may not need a laser printer or colour inkjet printer. A regular inkjet (black and white) printer would produce near-laser quality printer outs and would be an energy efficient alternative to laser printers. However, if your office requires printing large volume of paper then a faster printer (like laser) will probably be your best bet. They consume less energy per page.

Another important feature is energy consumption during standby mode. Consider how your office prints documents. Does the printer sit on idle for short or long periods? If your answer the latter, it is advisable to choose a model that reduces its energy consumption while in stand-by mode.

Remember to ask your vendor specifically for the printer’s energy consumption during printing, idling and energy-saver details before making a decision. This will help make your business energy smart. This article was brought to you by IMS Inc., one of Canada’s leading suppliers of the highest quality
manufactured laser printer, inkjet and ribbon cartridges. Visit http://www.imsinkspot.com.

Why You Should Avoid an Inkjet Printer from Being Idle for Too Long

Keeping an inkjet printer idle for months on end is not the best way to maintain the printer or to save on ink. To keep the printer and ink cartridges properly functioning, it needs regular cleaning and maintenance.

How to maintain your inkjet printer:

Newer printers have self cleaning system that is built into the inkjet printer. However, older style printers do not. Each manufacturer has their own specific cleaning instructions that are printed in the manual. It gives tips on how to clean the printer head, rollers and ink cartridges inside the printer.  If you no longer have the original manual, manufacturers will normally have it in their website.

The simplest thing to do is use your printer regularly. This will keep the printer and its ink cartridge running smoothly. Leaving the printer unused for long periods of time, may cause internal problems. Print at least once every week to ensure that the printer and ink cartridge are working properly. Even if it’s a test page, at least it is being used.

Printer heads clogging up is one of the biggest problems with ink jet printers. To ensure proper printer function, always test your printer by printing a test page. This must be done on a regular basis in order to check if the printer or ink cartridges are working fine. To clean the ink cartridge, remove it from the printer and clean them off using a Q-tip dipped in a bit of water. Wipe the inside of your inkjet printer at least once a week using a non lint cloth. This helps the printer’s print quality.

Following these few tips will help maintain your ink cartridge and printer.

Why use a refillable ink cartridge?

Refilling ink cartridges have been a popular way to reduce, reuse, and recycle for many people. Throwing away ink cartridges is like throwing batteries away. We all know that this is not good for the environment.

One big reason why people prefer refillable cartridges is that it is more cost effective than buying new ones. Refilling a cartridge could save you up to 60% less than a brand name ink cartridge. Most brand name companies would argue that refilled cartridges do not have the same quality. They claim that photos printed using refilled cartridge can fade quicker than their brand name counter parts. However, a study conducted by Quality Logic proved that the quality of refilled cartridges print outs are comparable to those of new cartridges.

Another reason to choose refillable ink cartridges is that brand names like HP, Canon, and Brother come out with newer printer models almost every year. Since older models are more likely discontinued, the same goes for its ink cartridge. There may be times that you will not find the same model ink cartridge for your old printer.

Not only are refillable ink cartridges more cost-effective, they are also safer for our environment. With the quality of ink improving in the recent years, the use of refillable ink cartridges are in demand

Be informed before purchasing Ink and toner cartridges

Be Informed

To the uninformed consumer purchasing toner supplies necessary to carry on with your day to day operations, understand that there’s Chinese made product in our midst that is being sold as a compatible product to compete with the OEM products in the marketplace.

What you might not know is that this product is being manufactured using illegally produced plastic cartridges and sold in our market place as a compatible.  At one time China OEM empty plastic cartridges to rebuild as compatible product, then only exploiting their own work force to build this product for what we would consider less then acceptable wages.

During the course of this era, a lot of the waste product was being dumped in areas inhabited by their general population who didn’t know any better than to have this type of thing thrust upon them.  After a considerable amount of time, it was slowly determined that all this type of waste product was contaminating their land and water table.  Populated areas were starting to have to bring in drinking water as their own became unacceptable for human consumption.  The Chinese Government stepped in and put import restrictions quotas on empty cartridges to prevent further environmental damages.

To get around the quotas, most Chinese manufactures starting making their own plastic molds to ensure the supply and demand scenarios.

Thus today the vast amount of Chinese compatible product is illegal by virtue of this fact that they never asked permission from the OEM manufacturers such as HP and Lexmark to do so.  Lexmark has been doing their due diligence to prevent this type of piracy from taking place and eventually HP will do the same.

So unless you’re paying pennies for this product, you might be short sighted in thinking you’re getting a deal.  The only companies really benefiting from this are the importers of such products, where without any investment other than some inventory, are taking advantage of a situation for nothing other than greed.

You don’t have to look very hard to see what this type of greed has led to, just go to any major retailer and try to buy an article of clothing that’s not made in some distant land, mission impossible, and the collapse of the North American textile industry.

Next time you’re buying a toner product, just check the bottom of the box to see where it’s made, even some of the large hardware manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon to grab even more margin in their supply of consumables to the end user (general public).

To the legitimate remanufacturers of North America, this is more than competition, because as caretakers of the environment we become saddled with this illegal product as empties which in turn, we have to dispose of in an environmentally responsible fashion, not to mention the money spent to do our fair share in keeping this product out of our land fill sites and possible causing irreparable damage to our piece of this planet.  Let your Conscience be your guide, for you and generations to come. 

How to Extend the Life of Your Printer Ink Cartridge

Extending the life of your printer ink cartridge is quite easy. Shaking the cartridge isn’t the only way to get more ink out of the cartridge, which, by the way, can cause leakage. By following a few simple steps, you can help prolong the life of the printer ink cartridge and allow you to be less wasteful, and help the environment in the long run.

   1. Preview your documents. Previewing a document before printing is the best way to avoid printing documents with errors. Typographical errors or misaligned images on the page can resort to printing loads of paper to get the correct information printed out. Using a spellchecker, grammar checker, and the Preview option in your computer can help save ink and paper.

   2. Print Draft-quality prints. If it is necessary to print out a document to double-check image alignment or general errors, use draft-quality printing. This can be set in your printer software. This way the amount of ink used will be minimal.

  

3. Print regularly. Use your printer regularly. Print draft-quality prints if necessary as long as it is being used. The ink cartridge can dry up when the printer is left unused for a long period of time. Dried printer ink can clog your printer head which can produce low quality printouts or worse, damage your printer head.

4. Unplug your printer when not in use. Power the printer down properly and unplug it from the wall. Heat from the electricity may cause the ink to clog the printer head. Clogged print heads can print low quality printouts and can overall damage the printer.

Following these few easy steps will lengthen the life of your ink cartridge. This article was brought to you by IMSinkspot.com.