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Printer peeve

Lighthouse lens at the Maritime Historic Park Visitor Center.

Printers. They piss me off.

Our cheap inkjet printer died in December, just after I made a dozen jars of blood orange marmalade and before I could print pretty labels. The printer was a couple years old, and it just stopped working, just like that. A couple of the colors wouldn't print, then the other colors conked out as well. I replaced the cartridges. I bought special fluid to flush clots out of the ink tubes. I checked the purge tube to see if it was disconnected. I ran cleaning cycles. I downloaded special software to let me run heavy-duty cleaning cycles. Basically, all the internet-guided home surgery I could dig up. None of it made any difference.

You know why? Because today's inkjet printers are designed to be disposable. Why should I bother getting the printer repaired when I can replace it for $69? Taking it to a repair shop would cost more than that. Jeez, one set of replacement ink cartridges costs more than that. But my dead printer is now going into a landfill*, and I've only had it for two years. It still looks new. I never even pulled off the protective film covering the button panel.

I have an HP LaserJet from 1993 that is still running strong. Yes, that is a 14-year-old printer. It prints beautiful 300-dpi laser prints. But only in black and white.

So I finally bought a new printer after going without color for six weeks. It came with a free sample of glossy 4x6" photo paper. I made a few prints using this stuff... and whoah. Gorgeous! They really do look like photo prints. I am officially impressed. But I'm still kinda mad.

*I will recycle it properly, but I bet all the plastic will still go into a landfill**. In Cambodia.

**And speaking of landfill, I saw something cool the other day. I was at a bus-your-own-plates cafe which had bins labeled for recycling, compost, and landfill. Not trash, but landfill. Made me pause to think about where my sandwich wrapper was going.

February 3, 2007 4:15 PM