An Australian company, Boomerang Imaging Supplies, has launched Swap Shops to recycle the thousands of used laser-printer cartridges which are now dumped.
About 1000 tonnes of spent cartridges from Australia’s 300,000 laser printers now go into landfill each year.
Boomerang is setting up vending machines in commercial buildings and retail outlets that will accept the used cartridge (paying a refund for it) and supply a new one and receipt using automatic telling machine (ATM) technology.
The vending machines will provide other products, such as floppy disks, and cartridge swaps will available over-the-counter as well.
The recycled cartridges will have a system of add-on modules to make them compatible with any laser machine and will cost about $50 less than new ones.
Boomerang’s production line at Crow’s Nest is producing 6000 cartridges a month and hopes to double it.
At present after the ink dust has been consumed, a elaborate plastic casing and some other moving parts within it are discarded.
Boomerang hopes to replace about $50 million a year of imported cartridges and then to tap into the world-wide market. About 60 million cartridges weighing 60,000 tonnes are disposed of each year world-wide.
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After my tirade a fortnight ago at the cost ($10,500) of the Bureau of Statistics brilliant CD of the 1991 census data, the ACT Library service says it is available for free public access at the Civic Library on East Row. For computerphobes, the library staff will drive it for you.
It also has Grangers Poetry Index (at Civic) and Austrom, Auslit and SAGE CD services at Erindale.
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Telecom has launched MobileNet Memo for digital mobile customers. Incoming calls can be diverted to a receptionists who will key a message of up to 160 characters. The phone will give a discreet beep or flash a message waiting symbol and the message can be flashed across the phone’s screen.
Telecom says its digital coverage will match its analogue coverage by the middle of next year. Digital now reaches 70 per cent of the population; analogue 86 per cent.
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Kodak has dropped its digital image costs for family snaps (Photo CD) to $1.30 from more than $2. The photo CD player which plugs into the telly and doubles as a sound player has been cut to $495.
This is not a free plug for Kodak, but an illustration of the general direction of communications in the world: electronic costs continue to fall, while paper costs stay fairly static. Are the days of the family photo album doomed? Will the album be replaced by flicking the still images across the television screen? Will we take a CD to grandma’s rather than the album?
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The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has appointed Ascom Timeplex as provider for its worldwide communications upgrade. The $1.5 million contract will make Ascom the preferred supplier of hardware and consulting services.
As DFAT moves into its new building it wants to improve the Australian Diplomatic Communications Network. It will eventually incorporate about 80 local-area networks in diplomatic missions worldwide.
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Further to my Mackerras-style prediction that no major reference books will be published on paper in five years’ time, a conference on Exploiting the Potential of Multi-media Publishing will be held in Sydney from October 13 and 14.
It will collect major publishing and software houses. Registration on 02 2105777.
The conference is a small sign that more publishers of quality reference material are interested in this technology which to date, with one or two exceptions, has been dominated by the producers of trash games.