Green Tech: Print on plastic, save paper

Posted on July 27, 2007
Filed Under Green Tech, Printers |

Toshiba’s latest printer allows one to print on special material made of PET plastic, reusable several times over. The material is coated with a layer of heat-sensitive chemical pigments that can turn black or white in different conditions. The printer prints and erases by simply changing the temperature and cooling times on these pigments. And if the ‘paper’ seems expensive at US $10 per sheet, then one should perhaps consider the fact that each sheet can be used up to 500 times!

And that’s not all, Toshiba claims that even the process of manufacturing this printer is eco-friendly, and generates only 1.5 kg of CO2 emissions as compared with 6.5 kg for most laser printers. Incidentally, the B-SX8R is no slouch when it comes to performance - it has a printing speed of 12 pages per minute, a resolution of 12 dots per mm, and a 500-sheet paper capacity.