HP Talks Rubbish On Green Printing

New cartridges are what users really want, says Zago. Presumably because users really want to pay two or three times over the odds for cartridges, in pursuit of a difference in quality that few of them need and most probably couldn’t detect. He refers to statistics that supposedly prove that refilled cartridges are not reliable, based on a study, paid for by HP, and performed by Quality Logic.

If users really are so keen on paying lots of money to HP for new cartridges, though, why does HP have to use such heavy-handed methods to try and prevent anyone buying anything else?

Users want cheaper and greener

The truth is that, despite the hurdles, people do refill cartridges, and they do buy cheaper ones. My experience of them is better than the HP study suggests. When I met with Zago, and other journalists, he was the only person in the room who claimed he could tell the difference between HP and other cartridges.

And, fundamentally, if those cartridges are bad, maybe it’s HP’s fault in the first place. Users would buy even more ink, and use even fewer resources, if HP and other printer manufacturers would get the design right and make cartridges that could be easily refilled, or make it easier for third parties to make cartridges.

It’s possible to make printers where ink cartridges are simple tanks, more like fountain pen cartridges. They can be taken out and replaced. Some of HP’s printers actually work this way – but guess what, it’s only at the high end of the range. Consumers will continue paying over-high prices, but businesses don’t have to.

But maybe we’re too hard on the company. “HP is a big firm, trying to optimise its existing porfolio,” says David Metcalfe of environmental technology consultant Verdantix. “In 2009 to 2011, firms will make changes within their existing protfolio in 2009 to 2011. They won’t make dramatic changes in product architecture.”

Maybe so, but I won’t be buying any more HP consumables until the company starts to do more. And Metcalfe reckons that if HP is still pushing the benefits of recycled cartridges in 2012, “that won’t be acceptable.”