Adopting environmentally responsible practises can save your company money and resources. You might be tempted to print rough draughts of new documents on paper that has already been used and thrown away when you’re looking for ways to save money and adhere to the “Reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra of environmental consciousness. Depending on the types of printers you employ and the potential harm caused by recycled paper, you must decide whether to move forward.
Manual Duplexing
It is a specific kind of printing on used paper when you print two-sided output on a printer without an automatic duplexing unit by feeding one-sided output back through your gear for a second pass. Some printer manufacturers advise against using particular models in this way. If both sides of the sheet are output from the same device, manual duplexing is less likely to run into issues. However, mixing printers can cause issues, especially if the heat from the second printing process is higher than the melting point of the consumables used for the first print.
Laser Vs. Inkjet
The type of heat source used in laser printers is not necessary for thermal inkjet printers, which use heat to transfer ink to paper. Toner takes intense heat to bond it onto the output page because it combines pigment with ground-up plastic. Duplexing and reprinting rarely cause problems for inkjet printers, unless doing so results in bleedthrough that makes the image on one side of the page visible from the other. Fusing hardware that runs at high but fluctuating temperatures is sometimes used in laser printers as well as other toner-based output devices like copiers and digital presses. Make sure the toner won’t unfuse before reusing laser output.
Reusable Scrap Vs. Rejects
You shouldn’t use paper that has visible symptoms of abuse such as tearing, moisture damage, and humidity damage in your printer. Mechanically flawed sheets can lead to paper jams, misfeeds, and other issues that require time-consuming fixes. The environmental advantages of reuse are negated when you use electricity, ink, or toner, and waste the consumables in an unsuccessful attempt to reprint on a sheet. Discard damaged paper and save it for note-taking.
Other Considerations
Some types of paper have a rating that either specifies the side of the sheet that should be printed first or says the item has just one side that can be printed. Many papers designed for photographic inkjet printing are completely incapable of printing on both sides. If you try to print on both sides of the paper unless it has two imageable surfaces, you might produce inkjet output that doesn’t dry and can harm your hardware.
