Simply Thrifty

The Printer Ink Monks of Wisconsin

by Kevin Humphrey on April 3rd, 2006

Pretty much all monasteries have to do something to raise funds. Some make cheese, others brew beer, and there was that one group of monks in Italy that originally made the Frangelico liqueur - umm, yummy.

Then there’s a 75-year-old Abbey of the Cistercian Order in Wisconsin that does things a little differently. They refill printer cartridges and call themselves the Laser Monks. Here’s a cool story from their web site on how they came up with the idea…

All I wanted was a little bit of black dust for one of our monastery printers. In my search for a toner cartridge, I was suddenly struck with how incredibly expensive this black dust and a few squirts of ink were. “There must be a better way,” I said to myself.And so began my foray into the world of imaging supplies. What I discovered was a revelation. Simply stated, the mark-up on ink supplies is sinfully high, reaching in some instances into the 1,000-2,000 % levels. I also discovered that there were many companies that manufactured either new compatible cartridges or remanufactured cartridges at a fraction of the cost of the big name brands. My thoughts starting racing. Imagine the money we could save schools, churches, and other organizations if we could negotiate some deals with the manufacturers directly and cut out the middlemen.

And hence, LaserMonks.com was born. And what is even cooler is that a portion of all their sales goes to fund their charitable activities. You get to save some money, save the environment, and contribute to good causes all in one fell swoop.

They’ve got a great web site too - LaserMonks.com.

[via BoingBoing]

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POSTED IN: General, Reusing and Recycling