Question from Jody
I am looking for the least toxic inkjet solution. I currently have two laser printers and they are making me sick! I have a home office in my living room in a small house. I am trying to sort through all the inkjet options. I don’t want to trade one toxin for another.
Debra’s Answer
I’d like to know the answer to this one too.
We had some discussion about this before (Q&A: Inkjet Printer and a reader wrote in that HP inks #60 Black and #60 Tricolor did not contain ethylene glycol, which seems to be one of the major toxic chemicals in printer ink. But I don’t know which printer they fit, if any, that are in production now.
Is anyone using a printer with ink that has no odor? If so, please let us know.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170829174508/https://www.qut.edu.au/research-all/research-projects/particle-emission-characteristics-of-office-printers
This is the article referenced above on internet archive.
I need to correct my previous comment above. The Epson Artison 725 ink does cause the same reaction I get from ethylene glycol. I found that I can only use this printer to scan photos, etc. (I don’t seem to react to the printer itself.) If we must print something, we open the window and let the room air out for some time before I enter it again. After the ink dries on the paper, I have no problem with it. Presumably, the ethylene glycol evaporates.
Before we bought the printer, I called a tech to ask about whether ethylene glycol was an ingredient in the ink for this printer. He said the ink did not contain ethylene glycol. I am assuming that it contains variations of ethylene glycol such as biethylene glycol, triethylene glycol or? Same problem but I guess he didn’t lie.
He may not have known. The thing to do is check the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) which is often online (if not, they are required by law to send you one).
The Canon LBP6000 seems quite tolerable to me.
I also have a Samsung, and that one i put in another room with the windows open
and i have an air cleaning machine near the printer.
I thought inkjets were not problematic.
That laserjets are the ones with the problems…
here’s an old listing of certain printers with low emissions and certain ones with high emissions …it’s an old article 5+ years old…but interesting is that some printers have low emissions and others have high emissions…i emailed canon and am awaiting their response
http://www.qut.edu.au/research/research-projects/particle-emission-characteristics-of-office-printers
While I have been waiting for suggestions of toxic free printers I came up with a temporary solution of covering my printers up with a piece of fabric. I had to build a sort of “tent” over them. It seems to help keep the offgassing from getting as bad. But happy to hear other solutions!
The HP 940 XL cartridges or any others with the same inks are the least toxic, I have found. Used in HP Officejet Pro 8000 series. Another advantage – the cartridges are very large; print lots of pages. Black print pages or with a small amount of color are fine right away for me. Lots of colored areas require 20 min airing out before I read them.
Our Epson Artisan Arctic 725 All-in-One printer uses ink that does not contain antifreeze (ethylene glycol). I’m chemically sensitive but can use this printer with no problems.
hp office jet hp 470 uses the 60 and i don’t ahve a problem with it
Was looking over some MSDS sheets for various ink brands, and looked up the HP 60 ink MSDS. It lists “Aliphatic diol” with a “Proprietary” formulation. Aliphatic diol I believe is the name of a group which includes ethylene glycol, aka “antifreeze”. Guess I’ll go with the Canon, at least they don’t try to hide the poisons they’re using, coupled with the fact that my current HP is leaking ink inside the printer. Good luck everyone!
Source: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/environment/productdata/Countries/us/ij_cc643series_us_eng_v8.pdf