Jaime_McLeod
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Standish Company Prints in Green
Apr 22, 2009 07:05 AM
Categories: Sustainable Business Town: Standish
Every year American businesses use more than 100 million toner cartridges in their laser printers, copiers and fax machines. Stacked end to end, they would circle the Earth at least three times.
“I think, for a long time, a lot of us really took these things for granted, and didn’t think about the impact of using so many resources,” said Debe Overhaug, president of Standish-based PRC Technologies.
Since the early 90s, when retired state trooper Brad Cochran started a small business re-inking printer ribbons in his basement, PRC Technologies has been working to reduce the environmental and economic cost of all of those toner cartridges. Shortly after Cochran set up shop, he met an engineer to who designed a machine to ink the ribbons faster, and an enterprise was born. Now, the company focuses primarily on cleaning, servicing and refilling spent toner cartridges, and reselling them to more than 1,500 customers across the country. The recycled toner cartridges not only save clients money, they also reduce the amount of plastic produced, keeping tons of waste out of landfills in the process.
And if all of that wasn't enough to earn the company its eco-stripes, PRC Technologies became an even bigger champion for the environment when, in 2006, it became the first company to experiment with toner powder made from soybean oil. Conventional toner powder is made from petroleum, otherwise known as “crude oil,” the same stuff used to make gasoline and home heating fuel. Overhaug said the company had been looking for an alternative to conventional toner for several years when, in 2006, she read an article about an inventor who had created toner made from soybean oil.
“Soybean oil is the perfect environmental solution, because it is a byproduct. They squeeze the oil out anyway when they prepare soybeans for the food market. You’re not using up valuable land just to grow them for this use,” said Overhaug.
Unfortunately, the product wasn’t yet available for sale. The inventors didn’t have the capability to produce it in mass quantity. That’s when PRC Technologies stepped in and found a manufacturer that was willing to produce the new powder.
“We played matchmaker, so to speak,” said Overhaug.
PRC Technologies stayed in the loop through the entire formulation process, repeatedly testing the product until it was deemed good enough for the company’s customers. It took a year and a half to get it right, but in the fall of 2008, PRC Technologies began selling a limited quantity of their recycled cartridges filled with the new SoyPrint™ toner to a test group of clients here in Maine. When those customers offered rave reviews of the product, the company made it available nationwide.
Overhaug said her sales staff has used a slightly different sales model to promote the new SoyPrint cartridges than they’ve used to sell their other products in the past.
“Rather than going directly through a purchasing agent, as we would normally do, we’ve done a little research to find businesses - or, more often, colleges and universities - that have sustainability committee in place,” said Overhaug.
“We present the SoyPrint cartridges as just one more thing they can do to reduce their carbon imprint. It’s been a good tactic, because even though we still end up working with the purchasing agent, it’s nice to have a champion for your product on the inside.”
Overhaug has great faith that, as people become more concerned about the environment, the business sector will continue to create innovative new ways to produce and sell products responsibly.
“Whenever we’ve been faced with any challenge, people have always come up with a solution. Almost everything that we use today can be made to be more sustainable. We just have to start asking questions and thinking about the alternatives,” she said.
For more information about PRC Technologies or SoyPrint, visit www.prctec.com or www.soyprint.net.
For more info on what Maine businesses are doing to be more eco-friendly, see the MaineBusiness.com green guide.
“I think, for a long time, a lot of us really took these things for granted, and didn’t think about the impact of using so many resources,” said Debe Overhaug, president of Standish-based PRC Technologies.Since the early 90s, when retired state trooper Brad Cochran started a small business re-inking printer ribbons in his basement, PRC Technologies has been working to reduce the environmental and economic cost of all of those toner cartridges. Shortly after Cochran set up shop, he met an engineer to who designed a machine to ink the ribbons faster, and an enterprise was born. Now, the company focuses primarily on cleaning, servicing and refilling spent toner cartridges, and reselling them to more than 1,500 customers across the country. The recycled toner cartridges not only save clients money, they also reduce the amount of plastic produced, keeping tons of waste out of landfills in the process.
And if all of that wasn't enough to earn the company its eco-stripes, PRC Technologies became an even bigger champion for the environment when, in 2006, it became the first company to experiment with toner powder made from soybean oil. Conventional toner powder is made from petroleum, otherwise known as “crude oil,” the same stuff used to make gasoline and home heating fuel. Overhaug said the company had been looking for an alternative to conventional toner for several years when, in 2006, she read an article about an inventor who had created toner made from soybean oil.
“Soybean oil is the perfect environmental solution, because it is a byproduct. They squeeze the oil out anyway when they prepare soybeans for the food market. You’re not using up valuable land just to grow them for this use,” said Overhaug.
Unfortunately, the product wasn’t yet available for sale. The inventors didn’t have the capability to produce it in mass quantity. That’s when PRC Technologies stepped in and found a manufacturer that was willing to produce the new powder.
“We played matchmaker, so to speak,” said Overhaug.
PRC Technologies stayed in the loop through the entire formulation process, repeatedly testing the product until it was deemed good enough for the company’s customers. It took a year and a half to get it right, but in the fall of 2008, PRC Technologies began selling a limited quantity of their recycled cartridges filled with the new SoyPrint™ toner to a test group of clients here in Maine. When those customers offered rave reviews of the product, the company made it available nationwide. Overhaug said her sales staff has used a slightly different sales model to promote the new SoyPrint cartridges than they’ve used to sell their other products in the past.
“Rather than going directly through a purchasing agent, as we would normally do, we’ve done a little research to find businesses - or, more often, colleges and universities - that have sustainability committee in place,” said Overhaug.
“We present the SoyPrint cartridges as just one more thing they can do to reduce their carbon imprint. It’s been a good tactic, because even though we still end up working with the purchasing agent, it’s nice to have a champion for your product on the inside.”
Overhaug has great faith that, as people become more concerned about the environment, the business sector will continue to create innovative new ways to produce and sell products responsibly.
“Whenever we’ve been faced with any challenge, people have always come up with a solution. Almost everything that we use today can be made to be more sustainable. We just have to start asking questions and thinking about the alternatives,” she said.
For more information about PRC Technologies or SoyPrint, visit www.prctec.com or www.soyprint.net.
For more info on what Maine businesses are doing to be more eco-friendly, see the MaineBusiness.com green guide.
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