Watch Out For Secondhand Printing? Laser Printers Deemed Dangerous To The Lungs
from the watch-out dept
A new report is getting all sorts of attention today for claiming that laser printers can be as dangerous for your lungs as smoking. Apparently, laser printers kick up some tiny particles of toner that people inhale. The researchers are asking the gov't to start regulating the printers and requiring health warnings -- but it may be a bit quick to call for such things. The study only showed that 1/3 of printers they studied had this problem and seems to show that this could be a problem, not that it actually is. Not to say that it shouldn't be studied more to find out if it is a real health issue, but before spending lots of time and money on regulations it seems like a little more research should be added. In the meantime, why not just publish which printers are the dangerous ones? That should drive people to stop buying those printers while also pushing the printer makers to fix whatever it is that causes the emissions. Since it doesn't happen on all printers, clearly it's something that has a technical fix that doesn't require the government to get involved at all.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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There aught to be a law!
oh yeah, first.
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Printing or no printing section?
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great...
come to think of it, my throat has been scratchy lately
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OSHA, hello!
I think it's naive to assume that publishing the results will cause demand for printers with high toner emissions to fall to a level that pushes them out of the market. It doesn't seem likely that enough employers will look at the health factor over cost when lack of regulation takes the liability off their backs and places it on the manufacturers.
Look at the extreme end of workplaces with printing equipment: copy centers. When your entire business is copies and your employees are the printing version of burger flippers, cost of equipment and quality of product are going to be your first decision factors if regulation is not present.
Even if the majority of businesses did base their equipment choices on emissions, there will still be employers who ignore the risk. If the danger is proven, then regulation should follow either for the manufacture of these devices, the conditions of the workplace, or both.
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Printers
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Printers
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As Bad as Smoking?
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WTF?
WiFi, Cell phones, TVs, Sunlight, Moonlight, Methane from cow crap, Magnets, Microwaves, I could go on forever. Everything is dangerous to these people.
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ACKKKKKK!!!
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Bad Science
Should I go on.............
We need to fix how scientists get paid to do these studies. If they did not know who was paying them and what results were expected of them prior to doing the study, we could probably get closer to the truth again.
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Re: Bad Science
It's people like you that ignore global warming and continue to add to it. I spoke to someone yesterday that actually watched a glacier fall apart in Northern Canada.
BS? Go back to 1492 where you belong.
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Laser printers are dangerous?
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printer makes & models with emission levels is ava
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/asap.cgi/esthag/asap/html/es063049z.html#es063049zt00001
Als o, 1/3 of all the printers tested did not have this problem. The abstract says 40% of printers tested were emitters and 27% of that 40% were 'high level emitters'.
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Seems to me...
particles emitted is an unknown. Even if the
particles are the size and shape of, say, second
hand tobbacco smoke particles, the chemistry is
quite different. Is there any research on the
effetcs of tiny styrene and carbon black particles
on human lungs?
I think there are conclusions being jumped at here.
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Re: Seems to me...
No thanks.
I love the never ending search for exactly how much poisonous crap it's ok to ingest.
What do you think our lungs were designed to inhale? Toner? Exhaust fumes? Tobacco smoke? All of the above at the same time?
And the voice of authority says, "Move on. Nothing to worry about here. Go shopping."
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Yeah, from either viewpoint - I don't question the fact that 99% of them are complete political BS, designed to enrich one person at the expense of others.
Usually it's some 'goodie-goodie' group trying to skim corporate profits because they are too dim-witted to develop their own product to sell on the market.
AKA - Big get rich quick schemes for people too lazy to participate in multi-level marketing, lol.
But on a more serious note would you rather be trapped in an enclosed garage for an hour with 50 Laser Printers and 50 Smokers going full bore - or one Hybrid at minimum idle?
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Not my printer
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Pissed at our gov't.
This society needs to change. We need to bring in a new president, to look squarely in the eye the lawyers.. "No More"
You can only do that if you change our ideas of what the role of Government ought to be. If you think that the government has to have a hand in taking care of us from cradle to grave, and broker deals (read: lawsuits) which transfer wealth from the poor to Wallstreet, then we all loose.
Take a look at Ron Paul if you get a chance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8
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Re: Pissed at our gov't.
RuPaul is running for President? I have not heard about he/she in a long time. Good for it.
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Uh-huh
Unless you, or your cleaning staff, dust regularly.
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read the article!
i'll say it again:
read the article.
it's easy to find. you might learn something. you might also refrain from ridiculous, ignorant comments on something you haven't even seen. your comments are all based on this one techdirt article, which itself bemoans a lack of a published list of printers. erm .. read the article! there IS a list.
geezuz.
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Re: read the article!
1) there is no list in the article linked to in this article
2) the article listed by Steve Pigg is behind a registration wall. (and I can't find a way to register or even if it's a pay site)
So point us to this list that you have found.
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Toner Dangers
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Dangerous laser printer emissions
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ROCKETWORKFLOW - Stop messin' around...
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Re: I'm using RocketWorkflow
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Toner Dust - Real or Myth?
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Laser Printer Dust
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Give me a Break!!!
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Here's what happened to me
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Laser printer dust allergy
The owner thinks that since they do not affect him, that the problem is imaginary. Of course, this is flawed logic, as the laser printer dust is carcinogenic, and lack of allergic symptoms do not mean you are immune from the carcinogenic or other ill effects.
There is no place for laser printers or faxes in our workplace. Ink jets are just as good, and are more economical. Many employee headaches and other ills are caused by these machines, but they have not realized the link.
A few lawsuits will be very helpful here to nudge employers into replacing these health hazards.
Rick
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It's worth it
Also, in response to the previous post, inkjets are nowhere as economical. Please find me an injet that costs me less than $0.05 per page of black text in total consumables, excluding paper. Oh, and that inkjet must print at least 20ppm on the normal quality setting, and 6-8ppm on max quality when printing an 8x10 photo.
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