Wednesday, May 7, 2008 is Free Printer Ink Day at Click2ink, one of the leading online stores for ink cartridges and toner in the U.S. For one day only, Click2ink will provide one ink cartridge per household for free.

To qualify for the free cartridge, visitors must sign up for Click2ink's newsletter before May 1, 2008. A coupon will be sent which can be used on May 7 to claim the free ink cartridge.

In addition to the free cartridge offer, Click2ink offers free shipping on orders over $55 US within the continental United States. Use coupon code SAS5 to get 5% off any order with no minimum purchase necessary.

Recently we reported on the thINK FOOD program which allows Canadians to donate to local food banks by recycling inkjet cartridges and cell phones. Now the United States Postal Service has announced the Mail Back program allowing U.S. citizens in select cities to mail their used inkjet cartridges, mp3 players, Blackberries, digital cameras, and other electronics to be recycled.

The program is being tested in ten cities, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego, and may be expanded if the program is successful. Citizens can pick up free mailing envelopes at USPS Post Offices. The used electronics will be shipped to Clover Technologies Group who will recycle the parts and sell remanufactured products.

HP is showing off the technology behind its forthcoming product lines. PC World reports on two innovations that HP is demonstrating even before it has products with which to sell them.

First is HP's latex ink, a water-based ink designed to withstand weather. Products using latex ink will be targeted at businesses who create outdoor displays, such as billboards and signs. The ink will survive for up to three years outdoors and unlaminated, and up to five years indoors and under direct sunlight. Whether latex ink will be used in consumer products was not announced.

Jon Chase at Popular Science wrote a blog post denouncing the ink cartridge business for gouging customers with prices that are more expensive than oil when prices by volume. From the post:

"And wouldn’t you know, it turns out that printer ink, especially for photos, is probably the most expensive substance per volume you’ll ever buy — more expensive than gold, oil, perfume, even blood in most cases. If you’re buying name-brand ink cartridges, which typically hold a few milliliters of ink, you’re shelling out the equivalent of between $3,000 and $5,000 per gallon."

Canon released the new PIXMA MX7600 All-In-One printer this month. The MX7600 brings Canon's PgR (Pigment Reaction) technology to the small office, where typical print volumes are low, requirements are high, and paper quality is low. PgR promises to deliver high-quality printing to low-quality paper, reducing page curl and ink bleeding, thanks to the PGI-9 clear ink which creates a coating on the paper before the black and color inks are applied.

At a suggested retail price of $400 US, the MX7600 includes high resolution color printing up to 4800 x 1200, copying, scanning, color fax, photo card support, an ethernet port, expanded memory, two paper trays, and automatic document feeder with support for two-sided printing. It uses six individual ink cartridges: PGI-7 (black pigment ink) and PGI-9 (black, cyan, magenta, yellow, and clear reactor ink).

Canadians have an easy way to recycle inkjet cartridges and cell phones while donating to their local food banks at the same time. The thINK FOOD program accepts donations of used inkjet cartridges at drop-off locations throughout most towns and cities. Along with the Phones-for-Food program, cartridges and cell phones are sold to the remanufacturing industry and funds go directly to the food bank in the local community.

According to the thINK-FOOD website, "300 million laser and inkjet cartridges go to landfills every year in North America." The program ensures that the entire cartridge is refurbished to become a new cartridge, wasting nothing. Since the program brings in money for local food banks, the benefits of the program are twofold.

For homes and small offices that don't need color printing, monochrome laser printers are superior to inkjet printers, says PC Magazine in a recent article by M. David Stone.

The article points out how printer specifications need to be considered carefully when comparing inkjets to laser printers. The pages-per-minute measurement in particular cannot be directly compared between the two types of printers, due to the fundamental differences between them. Inkjet printers need to perform far more processing on documents, so there are many assumptions being made when the pages-per-minute values are reported.

The Associated Press reports that HP is seeking to grow its inkjet revenue by convincing retailers like Costco and Target to use inkjet printers in their photo development labs instead of older chemical-based development technology.

Home computer users have become more savvy regarding home printers. Many who bought home photo printers have come to realize that it is often cheaper and more convenient to develop large quantities of photographs at retailers. Retailers in turn have made it easier to do so, providing user-friendly websites with which to upload photos and have them developed for pick-up or delivery by mail.