Toxic Toner Dust Laser Printer
Do cell phones give you cancer? Will excessive computer use make you go blind? Do laser printers emit pathogenic toner particles into the air?
The jury is out on the first two questions, but we can rest easy knowing that we will not fall prey to toxic laser printer dust.
"Contrary to numerous reports, laser printers release hardly any particles of toner into the air," according to data from Germany's Fraunhofer Wilhelm Klauditz Institute (WKI).
The debate made headlines last summer when Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia released a report that said particles released by laser printers were as dangerous as cigarette smoke.
The QUT report said that laser printers release "toner-like" particles into the air, but WKI disagreed with that assessment.
The devices do not release the toxic toner, WKI said, but they do emit ultra-fine particles made of volatile organic-chemical substances (VOCs). "One essential property of these ultra-fine particles is their volatility, which indicates that we are not looking at toner dust," the study said.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, VOCs are present in thousands of products like paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings, glues and adhesives, and permanent markers.
Printer VOCs are caused by the fixing unit, which heats up the printer so that the toner will stick to the paper. "The high temperatures cause volatile substances such as paraffins and silicon oils to evaporate, and these accumulate as ultra-fine particles," WKI said.
While this might not sound very appetizing, WKI said that the same level of VOCs are emitted while using a toaster.
WKI did not release specific statistics on levels of VOCs or exactly what health issues these chemicals might cause.
Moral of the story? Small doses. Your office printer is probably not going to kill you, but just as you might crack a window before painting a room in your house, it is perhaps not the brightest move to breathe deeply on a consistent basis near your laser printer.
Second moral of the story? Deal with it. VOC filters tested by WKI were shown to have little effect. "As the ultra-fine particles are not emitted from a specific part of the printer, but also from the paper output, for instance, a filter can only have a limited effect," according to the report.
The jury is out on the first two questions, but we can rest easy knowing that we will not fall prey to toxic laser printer dust.
"Contrary to numerous reports, laser printers release hardly any particles of toner into the air," according to data from Germany's Fraunhofer Wilhelm Klauditz Institute (WKI).
The debate made headlines last summer when Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia released a report that said particles released by laser printers were as dangerous as cigarette smoke.
The QUT report said that laser printers release "toner-like" particles into the air, but WKI disagreed with that assessment.
The devices do not release the toxic toner, WKI said, but they do emit ultra-fine particles made of volatile organic-chemical substances (VOCs). "One essential property of these ultra-fine particles is their volatility, which indicates that we are not looking at toner dust," the study said.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, VOCs are present in thousands of products like paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings, glues and adhesives, and permanent markers.
Printer VOCs are caused by the fixing unit, which heats up the printer so that the toner will stick to the paper. "The high temperatures cause volatile substances such as paraffins and silicon oils to evaporate, and these accumulate as ultra-fine particles," WKI said.
While this might not sound very appetizing, WKI said that the same level of VOCs are emitted while using a toaster.
WKI did not release specific statistics on levels of VOCs or exactly what health issues these chemicals might cause.
Moral of the story? Small doses. Your office printer is probably not going to kill you, but just as you might crack a window before painting a room in your house, it is perhaps not the brightest move to breathe deeply on a consistent basis near your laser printer.
Second moral of the story? Deal with it. VOC filters tested by WKI were shown to have little effect. "As the ultra-fine particles are not emitted from a specific part of the printer, but also from the paper output, for instance, a filter can only have a limited effect," according to the report.
0 comments:
Post a Comment