Is Printing Bad for the Environment? What the Numbers Actually Show

Printing is bad for the environment in the way most everyday habits are: the harm per page is small, but it piles up quickly when pages are wasted. The research points to a clear verdict. Paper and cartridges carry most of printing’s footprint, while the electricity a home printer draws is a minor part. A page you actually need, printed double-sided on recycled or FSC-certified paper from a printer you keep for years, is not a meaningful environmental problem. Printing emails, drafts and slide decks you will glance at once is.

Going digital is not a free pass either. Screens, phones and the data centers behind them have their own energy and e-waste costs, and life-cycle studies show the greener option depends on how long you read and how many people share each copy. Plenty of the printing statistics that circulate online, including the claim that a cartridge is thrown away every 11 seconds, have no traceable source, so this guide sticks to figures that can be checked.

Printing’s environmental impact at a glance

The ratings below are TechEngage’s reading of the life-cycle research cited throughout, not scores from a single study.

Part of printing	How much it matters	Biggest lever
Paper	High: forestry, water, mill energy	Fewer pages, duplex, recycled or FSC paper
Ink and toner cartridges	High	Return programs, high-yield or ink tank printers
Printer hardware	Moderate: electronics and e-waste	Keep it longer, recycle it properly
Electricity	Low for most users	ENERGY STAR model, sleep mode left on

Paper: the biggest part of printing’s footprint

A 2022 review by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre pulled together life-cycle studies of printers and copiers. It found that manufacturing the device and using cartridges are the main environmental hotspots, that electricity use is not, and that when a study includes paper, paper generally becomes a hotspot as well. So the sheet deserves attention first.

Where US paper fiber comes from

US paper leans heavily on recovered material and managed forests, with some caveats. According to the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), the trade group for US mills, recycled fiber and wood residuals such as chips and sawdust made up 47.3% of the fiber used by US pulp and paper mills in 2022, and members bought 98.9% of their forest wood fiber through a certified fiber sourcing program. A certified sourcing program covers how wood is bought, which is not the same as every tree coming from a third-party certified forest, and both numbers are industry-reported.

The global picture is more mixed. The FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025 estimates deforestation at 10.9 million hectares a year over 2015 to 2025, down from 17.6 million hectares a year in the 1990s. Forest area grew slightly in North and Central America over the 35 years to 2025, and 55% of the world’s forests now have long-term management plans. Because a ream’s origin is invisible on the shelf, a credible label is the only practical way for a buyer to steer clear of fiber from poorly managed forests.

How much water goes into a sheet of paper

Researchers at the University of Twente estimated the water footprint of printing and writing paper at 2 to 13 litres per A4 sheet, depending on the tree species and where it grew. Most of that water is consumed in the forest, through evapotranspiration, rather than at the mill. The same report estimated that using recovered paper cuts the global average water footprint of paper by about 40%. Water numbers for paper sound dramatic, but the lever that shrinks them is recycled content, not a different printer.

Energy and emissions at the mill

Papermaking is energy-intensive. The US Energy Information Administration lists paper among the three highest energy-consuming manufacturing subsectors; together with chemicals and petroleum and coal products, it accounted for nearly 77% of US manufacturing energy use in 2022. Many mills cover part of that demand by burning black liquor, a pulping byproduct, in combined heat and power plants, which is one reason biomass shows up in discussions of renewable energy sources. AF&PA’s progress report also says combined Scope 1 and 2 emissions at member mills fell 36% between 2005 and 2022.

For a closer look at how pulp turns into printed pages at industrial scale, see how newspapers are made.

US paper recycling rates in 2026

The EPA’s most recent paper and paperboard data cover 2018: 67.4 million tons entered municipal solid waste and 68.2% was recycled, the highest rate of any material. The category that includes office paper did much worse. Nondurable paper goods other than newspapers, a group that also includes tissue, paper plates and cups, were recycled at 43.1%, and landfills still took in 17.2 million tons of paper and paperboard that year.

AF&PA’s newer figures, released on August 28, 2026, put the 2025 US paper recycling rate at 61% to 65% and cardboard at 70% to 75%, with about 45 million tons of paper recycled. AF&PA now measures against paper available for recovery, so that range is not directly comparable with the EPA’s 2018 figure.

Printing paper demand is also shrinking. US printing-writing paper capacity fell 13.9% in 2025 to 7.7 million tons, from nearly 18 million tons in 2015. Mills trim capacity as orders fall, so the slide points to far less printing paper being made and used than a decade ago.

Ink, toner cartridges and printer e-waste

For the printer itself, the JRC review ranks cartridges and device manufacturing above electricity. For laser printers specifically, the studies it summarized pointed to use-phase electricity, transport and cartridges as the largest contributors to energy demand and global warming potential.

Printers are electronics, and electronics are a fast-growing waste stream. The UN’s Global E-waste Monitor 2024 counted a record 62 million tonnes of e-waste worldwide in 2022, defining e-waste as any discarded product with a plug or battery. Only 22.3% of that was documented as properly collected and recycled.

Remanufactured and refilled cartridges are usually sold as the greener choice, and they can be. The JRC review adds a catch: in four of the studies it examined, remanufactured cartridges were linked to higher paper consumption, which tipped the results toward new cartridges. The review ties print quality directly to paper use, so a reman cartridge only helps if its pages come out right the first time.

Printing statistics that don’t hold up

The following commonly repeated figures lack a traceable primary source and should not be relied on:

• “375 million cartridges landfilled a year” and “one every 11 seconds.” No government, UN or peer-reviewed source could be found for either number.
• “A cartridge takes 1,000 years to decompose.” A round number with no study behind it.
• “Three quarts of oil per laser cartridge, three ounces per inkjet cartridge.” Untraceable, and cartridge sizes vary too widely for one figure to mean much.
• “A household of four emits 1,200 kg of CO2 a month from printing.” That works out to more than 14 tonnes a year, far above anything the life-cycle research cited here suggests for home printing.
• “X trees per ton of paper.” Conversions like this depend on tree species and size, pulping method and recycled content, so a single number is not meaningful.

One office estimate does come from an official source: ENERGY STAR’s buying guidance still says a typical office worker uses roughly 10,000 sheets of copy paper a year. The page gives no study year, so treat it as a long-running rule of thumb rather than a 2026 measurement.

How much energy does a printer use?

Less than most people assume, which is why the JRC treats energy as a secondary issue for this product group. ENERGY STAR says certified printers, copiers and scanners save up to 35% compared with conventional models, largely by drawing very little power while idle. Its Version 3.0 specification, in effect since October 2019, requires power management features and automatic duplexing on certain printers and multifunction devices. The program estimates that if all imaging equipment in the US were certified, it would save more than $32 million in electricity and 596 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions a year.

The practical advice is simple: do not switch off sleep mode. ENERGY STAR notes that certified devices usually ship with their most efficient sleep settings as the default.

Laser vs inkjet: which is better for the environment?

Laser printers use heat to melt toner, a plastic-based powder, onto the page, which is why they draw more power while printing. Epson, which sells inkjets and has an obvious interest in the comparison, says its WorkForce Enterprise AM Series uses up to 86% less electricity than color laser printers. Treat manufacturer percentages as best-case figures. The direction is consistent with the JRC review, which lists use-phase electricity among the largest impacts of laser printers.

• Mono laser: a sensible pick for heavy text printing. High-yield toner lasts a long time, but each job uses more electricity, so the used toner cartridge should go back to the manufacturer.
• Cartridge inkjet: low power use, but small cartridges mean more plastic per page, and ink can dry out in a printer that sits unused for weeks.
• Ink tank inkjet: refilled from bottles instead of cartridges. It costs more upfront, and in TechEngage’s assessment it produces the least consumable waste for regular home printing.

For a household printing a few dozen pages a month, an ink tank inkjet or a basic mono laser kept for many years is a better environmental choice than a cheap cartridge printer replaced every couple of years. If you are shopping, TechEngage’s guide to the best all-in-one printers and scanners covers budget models.

Is reading on a screen better than printing?

Not automatically. The International Energy Agency estimates that data centres used about 415 TWh of electricity in 2024, around 1.5% of global consumption, and expects that to more than double to roughly 945 TWh by 2030, with AI the biggest driver. Every device you read on also ends up in the e-waste stream described above.

The life-cycle evidence is conditional rather than one-sided. A 2015 study in the Journal of Industrial Ecology by Achachlouei and Moberg compared a magazine’s print and tablet editions. With few readers and short reading times, the tablet edition had higher potential environmental impacts per reader than print. With more readers and longer reading times, it came out lower in half of the impact categories assessed. Digital pays off when a device’s footprint is spread across a lot of reading.

In practice, digital wins for anything you read once, share with many people or keep as a record, such as invoices, contracts and forms. Electronic signatures remove whole print, sign and scan loops, and a phone can handle the rest if you scan and edit PDF documents on mobile. Paper holds its own for long documents you annotate over several days, or when the alternative is buying a new device just to read.

How to print more sustainably

• Print less, and collect what you print. ENERGY STAR estimates that 10% to 35% of pages in offices are never picked up. Secure or pull printing, which holds a job until you release it at the device, fixes that.
• Keep duplex on. Double-sided printing halves the paper for multi-page documents, and printing two or more pages per sheet cuts it further for reading copies.
• Use draft mode for internal pages. ENERGY STAR’s guidance says lower-quality settings save ink or toner on documents that do not need a polished finish.
• Buy recycled or FSC-certified paper. Under the FSC labels, FSC 100% means all material comes from FSC-certified forests, FSC Recycled means 100% recycled material, and FSC Mix blends certified, recycled and controlled wood.
• Print in black and white when color adds nothing. Color pages draw on extra cartridges, which means more consumables to make, ship and return.
• Return every cartridge through the manufacturer’s program (see the table below) instead of the trash.
• Keep the printer longer. When it does die, send it to a manufacturer or certified electronics recycler rather than the curb.
• Ask about paper stock for commercial jobs. For flyers, brochures and business cards, ask the print shop for FSC-certified or recycled stock.

Cartridge return programs from HP, Canon, Epson and Brother

Company figures are more concrete than the viral statistics, though they are still self-reported. HP says customers have returned more than one billion Original HP ink and toner cartridges through HP Planet Partners, which operates in more than 60 countries and territories. Canon says it has run a toner cartridge recycling program since 1990, the first in the industry by its account, and had collected about 482,000 tons of toner cartridges in 24 countries and regions by the end of 2025. It has also collected ink cartridges since 1996.

Brand	How to return in the US	Limits
HP	Free drop-off at Staples, Best Buy and Office Depot OfficeMax (Walmart takes ink only), or free mail-back labels	Original HP cartridges and Samsung toner only
Canon	Toner and ink take-back through Canon’s collection programs	Options vary by country and product
Epson	Retail drop-off or mail-back to Epson’s recycling center in Plainfield, Indiana	Epson-branded products and packaging
Brother	Free prepaid USPS label created through a Brother account	Genuine Brother ink, toner, drums and P-touch cassettes

Do ink subscriptions help the environment?

With HP Instant Ink, an eligible printer reports its ink levels and HP ships new cartridges before you run out. HP says members should use the prepaid recycling envelopes that come with each shipment. The trade-offs: the printer has to stay connected to the internet, and Instant Ink cartridges stop working after the billing cycle in which you cancel. Brother runs a similar Refresh EZ Print Subscription for its ink and toner.

A subscription is mainly a cost and convenience decision. Its environmental value comes from the return loop: it helps if the envelope in the box gets you sending back cartridges that would otherwise sit in a drawer or go in the trash.

Printing and the environment FAQs