Oil prices and printer cartridge cost May 09, 2008 08:38 by John Sollars
Everyone and their brother/sister has been watching oil prices go up and up and up. There seems to be no end. With higher oil prices, means higher fuel cost, which in turns means higher prices for almost everything. But what about the other products of oil, mainly, plastics.
Yes that wonderful non-degrading product we use daily is made out of oil. I recently read an article that stated that a laser toner cartridge on average has between 1/2 to 1 gallon of oil in the creation process, while Inkjet cartridges are around 1-3 quarts. This can add up over time. The question is when will companies like HP, Lexmark, and Canon pass on the cost of the plastics on to consumers. I would guess it is only a matter of time and here are the factors.
- Cartridges are their money makers, even for a large company like HP. So if their margins slip, they want to keep investors happy, they would raise prices.
- Shipping cost have increased. We have all seen this in food, fuel, and everyday purchases.
- The cartridge bodies are made from plastic - Plastic is made from oil. It only makes sense that the prices would increase.
We have already seen 10% price increases from Canon and Brother, plus an increase due to the weakness of the pound against the Euro. It is a long tine since we had to worry about currency fluctuations, but since September we have seen about 15% reduction in the value of the pound to the Euro and all of our Original Manufacturers cartridges base prices are in Euros.
However, using recycled and refilled printer cartridges should not see as big of increase for one main reason, we are not making new cartridge bodies. We use the shell they made and add ink to it and make it work. So not only is it still the best environmental option, but also makes much more sense financially to use remanufactured laser and inkjet cartridges
