The Future Of Toner: Life-Cycle Inventory, Impacts And Environmental Technologies

A recent life-cycle assessment (LCA) on remanufacturing of toner cartridges in partnership with a major office supplies retailer determined that the toner is responsible for a significant portion of the full life cycle energy and environmental impact, as well as the energy required to produce a remanufactured cartridge. The details and results of this LCA will be discussed in this paper. Since toner resulted in a key component of the life cycle, there is considerable opportunity to reduce the environmental impact and energy use of a toner cartridge through the use of more environmentally friendly toners. In anticipation of companies designing copiers and printers that use more environmentally friendly toners, this paper investigates the environmental impacts of these toners. Examples of toners that claim a smaller environmental footprint are emulsion-aggregation toner from Xerox, Simitri HD toner from Konica Minolta, and bio-based toner resin, BioRez (R) by Advanced Image Resources, Inc. The life-cycle impact of the toners and a qualitative assessment of the environmental tradeoffs associated with petroleum based toners versus bio-based toners are investigated in order to more accurately compare these toners.