This story makes my blood boil. For those of you who read this blog on a regular basis (Hi Mom!), you know I have little patience for the craven pricing and environmental abuse that comes with the ink cartridge business.

Now here comes a new study from testing laboratory TUV Rheineland comparing inkjet printers when it comes to ink cartridge efficiency. The results were disgraceful, bordering on immoral.

Here are some of the highlights (lowlights) of the study:

*Up to 60% of the ink in the average ink cartridge is wasted, as in thrown out with the cartridge. Why: because most people throw out the cartridge when the printer tells them they are out of ink. Gee, how does that happen?

*Multi-ink cartridges are some of the most inefficient. The reason being, one color runs low and the whole thing gets replaced. Take this with a grain of salt, however. The study was sponsored by Epson, who is currently pushing it's single ink cartridge technology.

*Photo printing is more ink efficient than printing documents. Photos averaged 58% in ink efficiency "(not exactly anything to brag about). Document printing was an abysmal 47%.

*Of the brands tested (HP, Canon, Lexmark, Epson, Kodak and Brother), Kodak EasyShare 5300 had the worst score at 40% ink efficient. HP and Epson models performed the best averaging 80% efficiency.

So, why is my blood boiling?

First off, we all know ink cartridges are shamelessly overpriced. A 750ml bottle of Cristal Champagne will set you back about $350 (not exactly Miller Lite prices). If you filled that same bottle with printer ink as priced by the printer manufacturers, it would cost about $1350. I rest my case!

And as if that markup isn't enough, we now learn printers are programmed to prematurely prompt us to change out cartridges when they're still half full!

Think about all those half full cartridges going into the trash as you ponder these statistics, as well.

Americans plow through 300 million ink cartridges a year. Only a small percentage get recycled. The rest end up in landfills, where it is estimated it will take 500 - 1000 years to decompose.

Tips to save money... and the world!

Don't toss your cartridge until the copies start fading out. Don't go by the pop-up warnings.

Recycle your ink cartridges. Most of the manufacturers now provide recycling envelopes with the packaging. Use it!

Buy recycled cartridges. They're cheaper and it's one less hunk of plastic sitting in a landfill.

Print on both sides of the paper, if you're printer has duplex printing.

Print color copies sparingly.

If you have more than one printer in the office. Designate one as the printer for less important, internal use copies only. Shift ink cartridges that are getting a little faded to the printer for junky in-house copies, so you can use them as long as possible.

Contact the marketing department of those that make and sell ink cartridges and give them what for!

Link to or cut and paste these tips into an email and send it out to all your employees and other colleagues who might heed them. Please do not print them out to circulate, however.

Here's an article I wrote recently for this web site with other tips on how to reduce printing costs.