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printing
Top marks for
Toshiba’s erasable toner
Millfields Community School
occupies a four-storey Victorian
building in Hilsea Street in the
London Borough of Hackney. Meeting
the educational needs of 750
pupils from a wide range of ethnic
backgrounds, the UNICEF Rights
Respecting School combines state-of-
the-art facilities with a commitment
to sustainability evidenced by the
building’s high performance windows
and solar PV panels.
In line with the school’s policy to
provide a clean, equitable and more
sustainable environment, Business
Manager Stefania Antoniazzi felt
something ought to be done to reduce
the amount of waste paper being
generated by pupils and staff.
She said: “Excess printing is a
huge financial burden on educational
institutions like ours and the majority
of paper waste was caused by
users printing to a device and then
forgetting, or simply not bothering, to
collect their documents. This resulted in
Millfields Community
School is using Toshiba’s
revolutionary erasable
toner technology as part of
a paper-saving strategy that
also includes pull printing
and print monitoring
software.
a huge amount of wastage that had to
be addressed.”
Antoniazzi approached Direct Tec, an
independent supplier of office solutions
that has worked with Millfields for a
number of years. Company sales director
Simon Riley recommended installing
a new fleet of Toshiba multifunction
products (MFPs) and invited Antoniazzi
to visit Toshiba TEC’s London showroom
to assess the options.
It was there that she was introduced
to the e-STUDIO306LP and associated
e-STUDIO RD30 eraser unit.
The e-STUDIO306LP looks like a
typical MFP and uses standard copier
paper, but instead of conventional black
toner, it uses blue ink that can be wiped
out in the RD30 eraser unit, leaving a
blank sheet of paper ready to be used
again. If the same piece of paper is used
five times, paper usage is cut by as
much as 80%.
Antoniazzi saw the potential of
this ground-breaking system to save
paper and ordered one for Millfields’
administration department, which has
been enjoying the benefits ever since.
“Integrating it into our day-to-day
operations couldn’t have been easier
and it means that we can monitor the
recycling of the paper, which we have
been able to re-use up to 10 times,”
she said. “What’s more, Toshiba TEC
also provided a number of Pilot FriXion
ball pens, which also have erasable
ink, so that we can recycle annotated
documents and even exam papers.”
In addition to the e-STUDIO306LP/
RD30, Millfields has installed a number
of e-STUDIO6540CSE, 2550CSE and
3555C MFPs supplied with paper-saving
pull printing technology. Now, when
people press print, a print job is sent
to a print queue where it stays until
the user pulls it down to the network
printer of their choice by logging on
with a swipe card. This system keeps
documents secure and prevents
unnecessary printing, with auto
deletion of unwanted print files after a
pre-determined period.
Simon Riley also recommended
the PaperCut print management
solution for the monitoring of print,
copy and scan activity by user, device
or department. “Collecting data via a
print server lets administrators monitor
usage patterns and costs and take
appropriate action when necessary,” he
said. “The ability to implement quotas
and restrict where certain types of
printing can take place has been proven
to facilitate significant cost savings.”
The Toshiba e-STUDIO MFPs
themselves have a number of
environmental benefits including a toner
recycling system that ensures no toner
goes to waste and the option, through
Toshiba’s Carbon Zero scheme, of
offsetting all carbon emissions produced
during the manufacture of each MFP.
Millfields Community School’s new
fleet of MFPs was installed in April and,
according to Antoniazzi, it has already
achieved impressive reductions in the
use of paper. She said: “As well as having
to reduce our regular paper order, we
worked out that the print jobs sent but
not released had a value of £1,483. This
equates to 39,000 sheets of paper that
we didn’t use.We have estimated that
we will save in excess of £128,000 over
the next three years – money which can
be reinvested to provide our pupils with
an even better learning environment.”
Toshiba TEC has produced a
demonstration video of its erasable
toner technology in action. See
it at
watch?v=r--y9VvSTyg
Before & After
The problem:
l
Excess printing with a large number of pages left in output
trays and never collected
The solution:
l
New fleet of Toshiba e-STUDIO6540CSE, 2550CSE and
3555C MFPs
l
PaperCut pull printing and print management solution to
prevent unnecessary printing and monitor print, copy and
scan activity by user, device or department
l
Erasable e-STUDIO306LP MFP and RD30 eraser unit in the
administration department
The result:
l
39,000 sheets of paper saved since April
l
£128,000 projected cost savings over next 3 years
Antoniazzi saw the
potential of this
ground-breaking
system to save
paper and ordered
one for Millfields’
administration
department...
