Instead of printing black, now universities are printing green.

This summer PRC Technologies introduced a new brand, SoyPrint, the first soybean-based toner for laser printer cartridges.

"With this product, the impact you've had on the environment as far as printing is minimal," said Rick Greenlaw, vice president of marketing for PRC Technologies.

SoyPrint provides toner powder derived from soybeans rather than petroleum. With over 100 million cartridges consumed per year, this environmental breakthrough is believed to have the ability to save the toner industry a million barrels of oil a year, according to a press release.

Along with the SoyPrint cartridges, PRC created the Sustainable Printing Program, aimed at improving the environmental impact of the entire printing process. The cartridges are recycled two times, saving three pounds of heavy plastic and the program recommends using recycled printer paper. SoyPrint will also work with universities to arrange for old printers to be sent to local school districts that can use them.

SoyPrint customers will receive quarterly reports including the pounds of SoyPrint toner used, pounds of heavy plastic recycled and the number of reams of recycled paper consumed, according to soyprint.net.

Greenlaw describes this as the secret to SoyPrint's success because "too many times you can't measure what you've accomplished," he said.

"The reports are the most exciting part because we can tell the university every three months how much they have saved," Greenlaw said.

Currently BYU uses toners produced for equipment manufactured by Xerox; however three high-speed machines located in the University Press Building use an EA toner technology that saves an estimated 60-70 percent of energy per page.

SoyPrint's immediate goal is to sell 20,000 cartridges a month by this time next year. Put into perspective, this number represents about 50 universities of BYU's size.

The country's dependency on oil shrinks with every SoyPrint toner cartridge, according to the press release.

"You've done all you can do short of not printing," Greenlaw said.

Copyright Brigham Young University 11 Sep 2008