A Japanese company called Sanwa Newtec has developed a printer that works without toners, ink or (copy) paper. ThePrePeat RP-3100 is rather based on a line thermal head and special paper that’s made of PET plastic and can be reused over and over again.
In other words, if you have a sheet that you don’t need any longer you can insert it back into the printer (where it gets “cleaned”) and immediately print out a new document in one go. Each of those special sheets can be used 1,000 times, saving not only the costs for 1,000 sheets of copy paper but also 5.7kg of CO2 for the environment.
The printer prints in black and white only, but at least you need neither toners nor ink (look here for a detailed price comparison with conventional printers).
One sheet costs $3.35, while the PrePeat itself is priced at $5,600. It’s already available in Japan (people living outside Japan can make an inquiry here). Obviously, Sanwa Newtec is justifying this price with the low running costs and the eco-friendliness of the device.
This video shows the “green” printer in action:
It’s funny how companies will go through ridiculous measures to make a “green” product and then doom the product to failure because they charge absurd prices.
The question I have is “What is the point?”
Since you have to return the “paper” to the system for this to work, then you’re talking about printing things temporarily. If you need to print something to hang on a wall as a quick reference, it’s not going to be economical to blow a $3 sheet on it.
Why not just stop printing out so much worthless crap?
This just strikes me as the kind of thing that would be used by middle management with nothing better to do than call useless meetings all the time. “You’re going to come to my meetings and look at personalized copies of my terrible graphs.”
It’s a solution to a problem that shouldn’t actually exist.
Think about a meeting where everyone gets a 10 page printout of a project plan when the purpose of the meeting is to make updates to it. As soon as the meeting is over, the printed copies are useless. We only have one conference room at work with a built in projector and PC, and projectors are around $5000 plus the screen. Signing out a projector for a daily half hour meeting would be more trouble than it’s worth, plus I’m sure they use a lot more energy than this printer.
For warehouses this could be huge. Even in a hand held world a lot of printing that never leaves the building still happens. Things like pick tickets, receivers for po’s, inventory counts, etc… I can see the reuse rate be huge. Where i work we go through a lot of paper even after doing a huge push that reduced our printing.
JT & Chris G: You two are both still missing Butte’s point. Those things shouldn’t be printed in the first place. Small projects are <$1000, some many <$500. The warehouse should have PDA-like industrial devices for the workers. It would make them more efficient and save the printing costs. There's no point in improving a process a little, when improving it a lot costs about the same.
You are exactly right – but consider how much paper middle management waste. While its a fact that paper should not be wasted, most of middle management hold their positions in companies by wasting as much paper as possible to make it look like work is being done. At least this method is better for the trees!
The question I have is “What is the point?”
Since you have to return the “paper” to the system for this to work, then you’re talking about printing things temporarily. If you need to print something to hang on a wall as a quick reference, it’s not going to be economical to blow a $3 sheet on it.
Why not just stop printing out so much worthless crap?
This just strikes me as the kind of thing that would be used by middle management with nothing better to do than call useless meetings all the time. “You’re going to come to my meetings and look at personalized copies of my terrible graphs.”
It’s a solution to a problem that shouldn’t actually exist.
Oops, should write great post! Looking forward to seeing the next post!
It seems to me, other than the absurdly high price, the paper size is an issue. 8×10 seems a pretty big standard and not being able to print on that is silly. Yes we do print an inordinate of things, flyers, etc.. Still this is just too expensive and impractical. I can see people running around the office trying to collect the “read” pieces of plastic to print new stuff.
You do realize that there are only two countries that (formally) do not use a4 paper as standard?
But don’t worry, when this hits the US they’ll probably add the 5.9mm extra width needed for your silly paper sizes.
Don’t waste your time, he probably doesn’t even know what a millimetre is.
I am afraid you are right.
The _vast_ majority of the world use A4 as the standard paper size.
Uhm, 8×10 is a common *PHOTO* standard. “Standard” US letter size is 8.5×11 inches. And, as others have said, A4 (8.3×11.7 in) is a *real* standard, defined by ISO 216 and used by everyone except the US and Canada.
Well it’s an interesting start and you have to start somewhere.
First of all, those of us in the USA need to understand that A3 IS the standard paper size used in most of the world. Since the printer isn’t yet sold in the USA that makes sense. Secondly, any company that currently collects paper for recycling (most do) would find this printer useful. The price is still too high at this point but it shouldn’t be hard to get the price down. To save even more they need to figure out how to make the printer print duplex.
As a prototype it looks cool, but too expensive. I often print out code since I don’t want to jump around as I read or debug the code.
If they can bring the prince down to a reasonable cost, then I’ll think about it.
I know at places I’ve worked at, this would be very useful.
In one department, every agent was handed a printed list daily of leads to track down. In another department, I had a ton of reports to run and then print out for my bosses.
Let’s face it: business still runs on paper.
With the kinds of money they spend on the printers they had, ones suitable for corporate tasks, easily cost as much. Its only when you compare it to a home printer that it seems expensive.
A good thing about paper is that you can write on it and make notes. If you have to cross off items on a list, say, you can’t do that with this.
Wouldn’t you be able to just use a dry-erase marker on it? It wouldn’t be permanent, but then neither is the document.
How do you get the $3 per sheet?
Don’t you forget you’re supposed to reuse every sheet 1000 times? If you think of it like that, each print costs $0.003.
A quick google tells me regular A4 paper costs $0.01, that’s three times as much.
So even if you only reuse each sheet 300 something times it’s still cheaper than paper. And I’m haven’t even added the savings you make on toners/ink.
I doubt you’ll reuse that 300 times.
For one, you won’t give away the papers because of the cost. If you need to print something and give it away, a 40 page document (like a businessplan) will cost $120.
Also, there’s probably no way to write on the paper without ruining it. Folding is out of the question, and wrinkles probably make the printer jam.
Nice tech though.. But I think I prefer an ereader
It seems to me that the point of this is as a supplemental printer in a large company to be used for in-house documents that are not intended to have a long shelf life.
Obviously this could not be the sole type of printer in the establishment, and would have to be used with discretion. If it saves money and helps the environment, why be so negative? It’s not meant for everyone.
Personally, I’d love to have one at home once it becomes affordable, assuming it is actually safe:
Does it create fumes? It’s heating PET, so just how high will everyone get when it’s throwing out copy after copy all day long?
I cannot see a sheet of paper surviving a dozen runs through the office, never mind 1000. It WILL get damaged.. and then what?
Suddenly, stapling a report together becomes a $40 task.
Exactly, you really expect a sheet of paper to last 1000 uses without someone writing on it? without someone stapling it or taking a pair or scissors to it? Without someone accidentally throwing it out or dropping it on the floor and stepping on it? What happens when your business partner walks out the door with the 20 page presentation you printed out? there goes 70 bucks…
The thing is printing is so cheap now, a few pennies per page, that you would only have to ruin a few of these $3 pages to negate any savings. Add to that the hassle of of constantly having to collect the “special” paper and reuse it, making sure no one writes on it, etc. and it seems to be more trouble than any potential modest savings are worth.
Well, at least the “writing on it” problem isn’t one for me: the sheets are made of PET, so it seems pretty sure that you can’t write on them — at least not with an ordinary pen.
The guy in the video said hyakugojuman en, which is 1,500,000 yen. or about $16,666.66 USD
This is Michael Xu from kwdigital.co.,ltd . We are manufactory in china produce toner cartridge and inkjets .We looking for cooperation
Http://kwdigital.en.alibaba.com/
My email address is kwdigital@hotmail.com