The city of Los Angeles votes to ban single-use printer cartridges

[Daniel Sims]

In brief: The printing industry is widely criticized for forcing customers to purchase expensive ink cartridges from printer manufacturers instead of cheaper third-party alternatives. The city of Los Angeles is preparing to take a small step against this practice, but the legislation stems from environmental concerns rather than consumer protection.

L.A. City Council recently voted unanimously on a framework to ban ink cartridges that cannot be refilled or recycled. The law will likely draw praise from users, but printer manufacturers will probably still try to lock users into notorious razor-and-blade business models.

Details for the framework remain unclear, but the city likely aims to keep empty ink cartridges out of landfills, similar to the city's ban on single-use plastic straws, as part of its zero-waste plan. Los Angeles hopes to eliminate almost all of its waste by 2045.

Refilling empty ink cartridges is usually cheaper than purchasing new cartridges, but printer manufacturers such as HP and Epson have attempted to prevent the practice through DRM and subscriptions. Firmware updates have caused printers to cease functioning upon detecting third-party cartridges, even when performing non-printing operations, such as scanning.

Epson was accused in 2018 of utilizing DRM to prevent customers from refilling the company's cartridges. Furthermore, HP admitted that it aimed to lock in customers so they exclusively purchase the company's equipment when using its printers. Even Brother, once praised for supporting third-party cartridges and toner, was caught distributing DRM to degrade print quality from third-party cartridges.

The tactics are designed to uphold a razor-and-blade business model in which expensive cartridges and subscriptions offset the relatively low prices of printers. HP, which has settled multiple lawsuits over its actions without admitting wrongdoing, referred to users who don't buy the company's ink as a bad investment.

Banning single-use cartridges is unlikely to stop manufacturers from employing DRM, since the major players already have official channels for managing refills. HP encourages customers to recycle cartridges at major retailers, and other companies sell name-brand toner.

In response to the current situation, Paris-based Open Tools unveiled the Open Printer last year. Since the software and all components are open-source, the printer will never lock out refills or third-party cartridges, and users can make modifications freely. However, months after revealing the design, the company has not yet confirmed when its crowdfunding campaign will launch.

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The city of Los Angeles votes to ban single-use printer cartridges

 

[RudyBob]

So glad LA is looking out for nothing and no one. Hand out some building permits then worry about this drivel.

 

[VitalyT]

Aha, now that use of printers has dropped by 95%. Good morning! Where were you when everybody was using printers? - silent, because printing was bringing too much money. And now that most of the world has gone digital, the corrupt bastards decided to wake up and criticize the system, now that it is no longer making much money.

 

[yRaz]

Aha, now that use of printers has dropped by 95%. Good morning! Where were you when everybody was using printers? - silent, because printing was bringing too much money. And now that most of the world has gone digital, the corrupt bastards decided to wake up and criticize the system, now that it is no longer making much money.

I still do a lot of printing because when in the field, it's a lot easier to make notes and write modifications on paper than use the stupid tablets everyone uses. Also, try seeing how well a tablet holds up a bunch of blue collar guys on a construction site. It's also a lot easier to print out copies of what we need to do and hand them out at the morning meeting instead of finding the white hat to borrow the tablet.

I also think a lot of the people not printing anymore is the printer manufacturers own doing. That made printing so inconvenient that people just learned to work around it instead of dealing with their ink nonsense

 

[CapNemo72]

It should be banned everywhere.
Sometimes, for cheap printers, it cost less to buy new printer than to buy new ink for it.
It is ridiculous.

I am looking to buy a new ink-jet printer. We do not print a lot, but I would need to print occasionally photos, so it should be good at that. Ideally those with tank style ink not one usage cartridges, and need to be able to scan.

 

[Squid Surprise]

It should be banned everywhere.
Sometimes, for cheap printers, it cost less to buy new printer than to buy new ink for it.
It is ridiculous.

I am looking to buy a new ink-jet printer. We do not print a lot, but I would need to print occasionally photos, so it should be good at that. Ideally those with tank style ink not one usage cartridges, and need to be able to scan.

This does absolutely nothing for that though… HP/Epson/Canon etc already have recycling for their cartridges… so this affects no one.

The purpose of this legislation is almost certainly an “appear to do” as opposed to actually accomplishing anything…

 

[yRaz]

This does absolutely nothing for that though… HP/Epson/Canon etc already have recycling for their cartridges… so this affects no one.

The purpose of this legislation is almost certainly an “appear to do” as opposed to actually accomplishing anything…

Recycling has always been a lie. Most plastics that are "recycled" are just sent to a sorting center and then thrown away anyway. Recycling was created as mostly marketing to make people feel less bad about using single use plastics. The fact that we have microplastics in all our food, soil and bodies just goes to show you that recycling as a whole has failed. The other thing is that recycling plastic is more expensive than just making new plastics. They use Ethane to create plastics and it's essentially a waste product of natural gas production. Ethane comes out of the ground whether we want it or not so natural gas producers will sometimes literally pay plastic producers to "dispose" of it for them if they have too much.

It's so cheap to make new plastics that recycling is just not financially viable. If we had some "no new plastics" law and forced people to use recycled plastics that might change things. We might even see a resurgence of things being made out of metal, glass and wood. However, that still leaves us with the Ethane problem so we aren't going to stop making plastic waste until we stop drilling for Natural Gas. It's nice that they're trying to do this, but Ethane, the main precursor to most plastics, is a waste product of fraking.

I'm mainly on board with this because I don't want to pay $50 everytime I need to change out a cartridge. Frankly, it's not even that as I can just put it on the company credit card. It's more about me having to go drive down to the office supply store everytime I run out of ink instead of being able to have a large bottle of ink that I just refill it. I remember my dad had a printer he used for his business to print brochures and we had quart bottles of ink and we just filled them up with a syringe. If my dad was using printing photo quality brochures in the 90s with ink he bought from the print shop(the guy made ink in his garage IIRC) then I don't want to hear from these companies that single use ink cartridges are to protect the quality of the prints. And, frankly, it's up to the user to decide what level of printing is acceptable.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Exactly!
Just by saying “recycling” we’ve been conditioned to think it’s all good now…

Even “real” recycling is always the last option of “reduce, reuse, recycle” and it’s almost never real…

 

[tonylukac]

I used to work at the city of Los Angeles IT department. They had a mainframe criminal records remote system for their police cars. Don't manufacturers still have chips in their printer cartridges preventing refills? There used to be a store called Cartridge World which refilled cartridges, but they went out of business.

 

[pnntmp]

I wonder what's worse - loony 'environmentalists' pushing assorted idiocies like plastic-wrapped paper straws, or the razor-and-blade -like business practices.

The loony 'environmentalists' seem to be worse .. extremely annoying, and you can't get rid of them. With businesses it's easier - just don't buy their stuff.

 

[RudyBob]

Aha, now that use of printers has dropped by 95%. Good morning! Where were you when everybody was using printers? - silent, because printing was bringing too much money. And now that most of the world has gone digital, the corrupt bastards decided to wake up and criticize the system, now that it is no longer making much money.

I think you are partially correct but the gist of this action is that the council is filled with people that can't really think beyond small business office level. Major city council members should have the ability to formulate thought on issues that matter

 

[p51d007]

The "crum" chips on the cartridges, even though you can sometimes find ways to reprogram them to accept a refill ink or toner, the manufacturers push out updated firmware and it stops them from working. Now, a lot of manufacturers use single use chips that once the machine registered the ink/toner is a 0%, it sends a signal to "destroy" the chip. The machines we service/sell have that, and they have another feature that if you pull a toner cartridge out of one machine, put it in another machine it will pop up a nag screen saying the cartridge was replaced too soon, and you should put the other cartridge back in. (something we can disable in service mode).
As for people printing less, in the home environment probably, but not so much for schools, businesses etc. It seems like every time the government releases new regulations/rules/laws, our volumes go UP.

 

[jsullivan]

Not sure why this is such a big deal anymore. For a slightly higher upfront cost, you can buy an inkwell-style inkjet printer (Epson makes really reliable and well-regarded ones like the ET-3850) that you refill on your own using bottles. Of course you can buy OEM refill bottles for an arm and a leg, but off-brand bottles on Amazon work just as well for pennies per page.
I’ve printed 5 reams of paper on mine for b/w and color pages, and only refilled the reservoirs once. And refilling used about half of each bottle of ink. It’s a foolproof, easy way to get away from single-use ink cartridges for good.
Put your money where your mouth is and stop buying cartridge inkjets. They’re a better investment and avoid the environmental impacts of cartridge waste.

 

[OortCloud]

Any article about actually trying to protect the environment always wakes up the same cultists. Why are you so desperate to reject any attempt to protect the environment? What part of the overwhelming evidence that shows the damage we are doing is it that makes you feel the need to start typing? Why are you all part of the same demographic? The drill-baby-drill-cult with some freakish rose-tinted view of oil and coal and a US from the past that never existed. Throw in some faux-Christianity and you are a fully paid up member of the sect.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Any article about actually trying to protect the environment always wakes up the same cultists. Why are you so desperate to reject any attempt to protect the environment? What part of the overwhelming evidence that shows the damage we are doing is it that makes you feel the need to start typing? Why are you all part of the same demographic? The drill-baby-drill-cult with some freakish rose-tinted view of oil and coal and a US from the past that never existed. Throw in some faux-Christianity and you are a fully paid up member of the sect.

It’s not that I’m against protecting the environment… it’s that I don’t think THIS will do anything to protect it…

 

[BrightlightJohn]

Las Angeles, California, where insanity is the rule and common sense is as hard to find. I don’t think THIS will do anything to protect to the environment. More political signaling that does not fit economic reality. Expect ink cartridge prices to go up while the politicians blame the "greedy" manufacturers.

 

[Che Cazzo]

Any article about actually trying to protect the environment always wakes up the same cultists. Why are you so desperate to reject any attempt to protect the environment? What part of the overwhelming evidence that shows the damage we are doing is it that makes you feel the need to start typing? Why are you all part of the same demographic? The drill-baby-drill-cult with some freakish rose-tinted view of oil and coal and a US from the past that never existed. Throw in some faux-Christianity and you are a fully paid up member of the sect.

Indeed. I am not sure who died and made the MAGA crowd here environment experts! The moment somebody passes a law or does something to lessen any kind of pollution, you will definitely see the usual resident MAGA "experts" claiming it will not work....no matter what it is!!

Heck, even the cult leader is against any energy but coal and oil - and hates wind energy with a vengeance.... because it "kills whales"!!.

We're not in the dark ages anymore, it's 2026. But there you have it, nothing has changed.

 

[OortCloud]

Indeed. I am not sure who died and made the MAGA crowd here environment experts! The moment somebody passes a law or does something to lessen any kind of pollution, you will definitely see the usual resident MAGA "experts" claiming it will not work....no matter what it is!!

Heck, even the cult leader is against any energy but coal and oil - and hates wind energy with a vengeance.... because it "kills whales"!!.

We're not in the dark ages anymore, it's 2026. But there you have it, nothing has changed.

Yeah the whole obsession with windmills thing. He's just trying to discredit any sustainable and responsible form of energy production as he's completely in the pocket of big oil and coal companies. He probably knows deep down it's a terrible policy (or did once before his mental faculties became so poor) but he doesn't care because he's old and won't be around to face and deal with the consequences of his actions. Most parents might be worried for their kids futures too, but I very much doubt he gives his offspring even a passing thought in that regard.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Yeah the whole obsession with windmills thing. He's just trying to discredit any sustainable and responsible form of energy production as he's completely in the pocket of big oil and coal companies. He probably knows deep down it's a terrible policy (or did once before his mental faculties became so poor) but he doesn't care because he's old and won't be around to face and deal with the consequences of his actions. Most parents might be worried for their kids futures too, but I very much doubt he gives his offspring even a passing thought in that regard.

Indeed. I am not sure who died and made the MAGA crowd here environment experts! The moment somebody passes a law or does something to lessen any kind of pollution, you will definitely see the usual resident MAGA "experts" claiming it will not work....no matter what it is!!

Heck, even the cult leader is against any energy but coal and oil - and hates wind energy with a vengeance.... because it "kills whales"!!.

We're not in the dark ages anymore, it's 2026. But there you have it, nothing has changed.

Maybe stay on topic and you might get some people to agree with you… this thread has nothing to do with Trump, windmills or killing whales…

 

[BrightlightJohn]

Indeed. I am not sure who died and made the MAGA crowd here environment experts! The moment somebody passes a law or does something to lessen any kind of pollution, you will definitely see the usual resident MAGA "experts" claiming it will not work....no matter what it is!!

Heck, even the cult leader is against any energy but coal and oil - and hates wind energy with a vengeance.... because it "kills whales"!!.

We're not in the dark ages anymore, it's 2026. But there you have it, nothing has changed.

Why?! Every time the environmentalists celebrate another radical environmental regulation, the costs are passed down to the consumer. The cost of many environmental regulations are directly impacted with higher costs to the consumer.