When toners are replaced before completely empty its defined as toner waste, but it's also a waste of money and its bad for the environment. However, its difficult to manage because its difficult to track.
Photo by Joshua Fuller
Price of 1 month toner waste: € 1934 based on 403 toner replacements
Based on an assessment of 30 days tracking 403 toner replacements, we concluded no less than an average toner waste of 16% on office printers.
Let's say that the price is € 30 per toner. That's a loss of € 4.80 per toner. In this case with 403 replacements, thats a loss of € 1934 per month.
What you can do to reduce toner waste on office printers
These are all actions you can do which will help reduce the risks of toner waste:
Remove "low" alerts on the device. First step to overcome this problem is to avoid the triggers such as alerts when "Low" or flashing indicators that a toner needs replacements. This can be done on a device level in the settings.
Educate users to only replace toners when they report empty. This could be posters above the printers with encouraging reminders to check if its 100% empty.
Make it a sport. If you reach 0% lunch is on the boss.
If you have a managed print services agreement where toner is somehow included in a monthly fee, ask your vendor to include statistics about your toner waste on your status meetings. This will bring you up to date on the current situation.
Use software like 3manager to monitor toners and replacements which will notify you when toners are replaced with more than 0% left.