The monks at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank are now selling laser toner cartridges for printers made with soybean oil (instead of petroleum).
If you've ever owned a laser printer you know how expensive replacement cartridges are. When the monks of Our Lady of Spring Bank faced sticker shock they quickly decided to buy recycled cartridges at a fraction of the cost, this eventually led to a recycled ink cartridge business, which in turn led to the development of SoyPrint™ toner. The benefits are listed on their website and quoted here:
"Soy toner represents the latest environmental breakthrough in office printing! Made from renewable, environmentally-friendly soybeans, SoyPrint™ toner allows you to print greener without sacrificing cost, quality or page yield! Every conventional petroleum-based toner cartridge replaced with Soy represents up to two liters of oil saved, and prevents the release of harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs).Soy Ink Benefits
* Vibrant colors/High Quality that matches brandname toner quality/performance
* Lower rub-off - soy inks show a greater rub resistance
* Cost effective
* Laser Proof - in a laser printer, the ink is exposed to heat. The boiling point of soy ink is lower, therefore there is less chance of the ink being transferred to parts of the machine rather than the paper.
* Stability - Soy ink has a lithographic stability
* Environmentally friendly and sustainable - no crude oil used to produce the toner
* Reduces dependence on foreign oil
* Higher yield - for many of the toner cartridges, soy ink yields 10% more pages
* Simpler and less capital intensive in the de-inking process (recycling)
* Reduction of carbon dioxide emissions"
Expenses and the cost of products are 80 percent of profit, leaving 10 percent for the monastery and 10 percent for charities.
For more information visit the Monks website and read the New York Times article below:
lasermonks.com website
New York Times "Laser Monks"
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