Best Eco-Friendly Printers for Your Home or Small Office

When shopping for an eco-friendly printer for your work or home office, one quickly realizes that looking at the Page Per Minute and color options simply isn't enough. Today's consumer wants a clean, Green and functional printer that not only produces professional documents but also does its part to reduce carbon footprints and minimize waste.

As you look at the new office lineup, it is refreshing to see that so many of the big-name companies have started expanding their eco-friendly printer options. As one wanders through the rows of printers available at any office supply store, the Energy Star label is appearing more and more frequently. Quite honestly, it is easy to feel good about your equipment upgrade when all the options appear to be ecologically sound.

On the other hand, all those Energy Star and other Green claims can also make the decision of what to buy more confusing. Although all of the new models appear to be better for the environment than the one at the office that just printed its final farewell, are they really?

I took a look through some of our local office supply stores and pushed buttons, opened cartridge bays and fiddled with functions to see which should hold the title of The Best Eco-Friendly Printer. Here are my three favorites.

Eco-Friendly Printer For the Small Office

Lexmark Pinnacle Pro901

Price: $299.99 at Office Depot, $287.60 at Amazon.com

One of the last printers I looked at while comparing features became my instant favorite. I was impressed with Lexmark's version of the Pro901. A wireless inkjet all-in-one, it can also be set up using an Ethernet cable for those who prefer to have a hard-wire connection. The capacity to print up to 33 pages per minute (30ppm for color) means that you won't be left waiting for it to finish your project, and it is well equipped with scan, copy and fax capabilities. This printer was also the easiest to use, with a beautiful 4.3" touch-screen and simple touch-and-go functions.

The Green features of this eco-friendly printer are many. In fact, it had the most Green features of the devices I tested. As the others I found were, the Lexmark Pinnacle Pro901 is Energy Star qualified. It also features "Eco Mode" settings which automatically turns on energy saver settings and 2-sided printing to reduce both electricity and paper waste. Manual settings also allow you to dim the touch-screen brightness for energy savings, and turn duplex printing on or off as needed.

The ink cartridges carry the Eco-Friendly Printer title even further, having separate ink cartridges for each of the four colors (black, cyan, yellow and magenta), allowing you to only change the color that you need to without throwing out valuable ink. High-Yield ink cartridges are also available for this machine, which means fewer cartridges have to be changed and recycled.

Eco-Friendly Printer For Home Photos

Kodak-ESP 7250

Price: $199.99 at Best Buy, $166.99 at Amazon.com

Kodak and Cannon really fought it out for the title of Eco-Friendly Printer for Home Photos. I am partial to the Cannon Pixma MX870 because of its individual color ink cartridges, but concede that Kodak has all the other important eco-friendly features, and is still king of photo printing.

Boasting the lowest replacement photo-quality ink cartridges in the industry, the Kodak-ESP 7250 also holds multiple photo paper sizes as well as standard paper to be used for regular printing and copying. The flat-bed scanner is uncluttered and easy to use, including intelligent software that allows you to scan multiple photos simultaneously as individual files automatically.

Energy Star qualified, the Kodak-ESP 7250 is focused on reducing paper waste by providing you with both 2-sided printing and borderless printing options. Energy savings are apparent when you don't need to boot up a computer to use the device. Kodak has found a way to allow this eco-friendly printer to receive files directly from many popular memory cards and properly equipped digital cameras and Wi-Fi enabled devices (including Blackberry, iPhone and iPod touch).

Eco-Friendly Printer For Large Projects

Brother MFC-6490CW

Price: $299.99 at Office Max, $269.99 at NewEgg.com

If you are looking for something to handle your large format printing as well as scanning, faxing and copying, nothing beats the Brother MFC-6490CW. Boasting a whopping 11"x17" flatbed scanner and matching print-size capacity, this eco-friendly printer is perfect for small business or homework projects and presentations.

Although the Brother MFC-6490CW has the most expansive printing options, it has also managed an Energy Star qualification. The peak 29W power consumption is reduced to a mere 6W in Standby mode, and further reduced to 4W during Sleep mode. Individual color ink cartridges help in the reduction of valuable ink waste, and their compact size makes saving empty cartridges for recycling a breeze.

Although it larger than the other devices I considered (23.13" x 19.2x 12.7"), the impressive print-size capabilities combined with the individual color ink cartridge setup and duplex printing is a great trade-off for the desk space.

Whatever your printing needs, one or all of these printers will be able to meet them through their marriage of form and function. Coupling eco-friendly printing with functionality and making the end result affordable has been long awaited by globally minded consumers and it is a great step in the right direction for home and business offices everywhere.