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PRINTING SUCKS:
Printers are dastardly and frustrating. It seems like they always manage to, either,
fail to reproduce what was pictured on the screen or they print one itty-bitty paragraph
per page just because you forgot to check a tiny hidden box buried in the print menu.
Using your printer leaves you feeling guilty and penniless from all the pricey paper you're
using, and, to add insult to injury, the ink is FREAKING EXPENSIVE.
Wonder why ink is priced like it's some kind of liquid gold? One of the big reasons (apart
from the "razor and blades" method of business modeling) is because we're using archival
quality ink. The documents we print out are all being prepared to last for the next 200+
years. The problem is that we don't actually want everything we print out to last for 200
years. Much of it we don't want to last until next week.
The usual printing experience goes thusly; you write a paper, print it out, proofread
it, make corrections and enter it back in to the computer. You print it out again, proof
a second time, making sure that there aren't any errors and enter it back into the computer.
If you're lucky (and you're the greatest essay writer of all time), your document is now
perfect and you print it out one last time, except that the second you take it off the
printer you see a glaring error that you somehow missed on the screen and have to print it
AGAIN. By this time, imagining it was a 5 page document,
you've printed out 20 pages of slightly embarrassing junk that you hope never sees the light of
day and you've used up some part of a rainforest in Brazil before lunchtime. If you're inclined,
you recycle those 20 pages and they begin a thousand-mile journey to be ground up, doused
in caustic chemicals, and pressed into a lower quality product that looks just like the crisp
bleached-white pages you disposed of, but without the printed text.
Feeling slightly nauseated by this? Don't worry, it eventually becomes just another
bad taste in the back of your throat that you learn to ignore as you print ream after
ream of paper directly into the recycling bin.
If only you could remove the ink that you knew you weren't going to want to keep, and
re-use the paper in your own office. What if you could print out the final document
on those same pages that you proofed it on? What if you could have that recycling plant
in your own office?
(I recognize that in an ideal world we would proofread things on the computer, but sadly,
most of us have a great deal of trouble doing that and see errors on physical paper that
we would otherwise miss. This isn't just a problem for the older generations. It's just
as hard for the new technology-immersive-all-digital-all-the-time generation to catch those pesky written errors
on a digital surface. Perhaps we will eventually find a medium or screen that overcomes this
challenge, but even so I doubt that anything will ever replace paper. I honestly doubt
anything will ever even come close to the ease and elegance of a tactilely stimulating
piece of paper covered in crisp little words.)
PALIMPSEST PRINTING:
There's a surprisingly obvious solution to this perpetual printing problem: erasable
ink. The issue here is that the solution isn't that simple. Erasing is a complex process
and I doubt that anyone would sit and rub an eraser over every printed page (gently
enough that it doesn't destroy the integrity of the paper) no matter HOW environmentally
aware they are. You can't use chemical baths to erase because that involves so much mess
and shipping that it gets costly and counterproductive pretty quickly. Palimpsest ink is a different
approach to this problem. Palimpsest ink uses one of the simplest but still most powerful
tools that we have: UV rays. Most people don't realize that we've spent thousands of years
trying to develop lightfast colors and they still aren't perfect. UV rays break down things
so readily that artists to have to keep work out of sunlight because it fades with such
limited exposure. Also, most 'natural' dyes are rejected for modern use because they lack
the lightfastness of the expensive synthesized colors.
Palimpsest ink is made of a compound that holds up long enough to proof-read something,
but disappears (or breaks-down molecularly) under certain circumstances leaving behind
a clean sheet of paper. This circumstance, to ensure that a document isn't accidently
erased before the user is ready, is intense UV light. What makes it different from similar
ideas is that the paper doesn't need to be coated in some kind of solvent (a potentially
messy and limited process) and can go back to being what is essentially the pure original
paper.
The ink won't be the dark black color that we expect to see come out of our printers,
and instead is a shade of green. This color is visible, easy to read, and makes it obvious
that something was Palimpsest Printed. Also, the green color has the added symbolism of
being an environmentally friendly (or 'green') product.
The ink will be available in printer cartridges or refill kits. Colored palimpsest ink is
unnecessary because color prints are usually intended to be permanent or work better on
a digital surface.
There will be a small machine called the Light Cycle. This is a simple device that exposes
the paper, sheet by sheet, to an intense UV light. The bulbs necessary for this light
are already on the market for tooth-bleaching, reptile cages, and tanning beds. The user
can print their pages, proof them, put them in the Light Cycle and walk away. The machine
does the rest. After a few minutes the user returns to find their pages are blank and
as good as new. The machine itself is essentially an automatic scanner without all the bits
that give it the ability to scan things.
Lastly, there will also be pens available that are filled with the same kind of ink
as in the printer. This enables the user to proof their document in pen and not have to
worry about it not coming out in the Light Cycle.
HOW DOES IT WORK:
Intense UV light bombards the chemical chains that make up ink with tight wavelengths and
smashes them into fragments which quickly bond with oxygen and form new 'dormant' molecules
that no longer absorb color from light (and therefore the page only reflects white).
This is the same process that leads to fading colors on signs, cars, houses, paintings,
and clothes.
The environmental boon to this product is twofold; first, businesses can use significantly
less paper, and secondly, the ink itself requires fewer intense chemicals to produce (which
also makes it cheaper to manufacture). Normally all dye/ink/etc. production is shaped by the
need for lightfast but vibrant pigments. Natural dyes, which are much cheaper to produce than
modern micronized pigments, are less lightfast and better for this project. The ink could
be advertised as both a 'green' and a natural solution to printing. Lake dyes, which are
often byproducts of other industries, are notorious for breaking down easily when exposed
to intense UV light and will probably be ideal for this project.
The palimpsest ink won't break down so easily that it can endanger the pages to leave them
sitting out on your desk. Many wavelengths of UV light (UVB in particular) don't make
it through glass, so unless left outside in broad daylight for an extended period of continually
sunny weather, the palimpsest ink wouldn't break down before it was put in the Light
Cycle.
WAIT WHAT IS IT AGAIN?:
The Palimpsest Printer Ink and Light Cycle is eco-sensitive solution to the environmentally
unsustainable and necessary practice of printing. We often take for granted how many resources
printing something (and recycling the waste-paper) really uses. This would be a way to use less
paper, avoid the energy-expensive recycling system, and save both the atmosphere and the
forests. There is a huge market just waiting for this simple way to change how we do business
and to help save the world.
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