By the very fact that laser printers and other office equipment using toner cartridges are dependant on a form of dust to do their printing, it should come as no surprise that fitting printer dust filters is a logical thing to do. Preventing any dust from getting into the air of a working environment is an obvious thing to be concerned about and aware of. However, a surprisingly low proportion of office staff and managers know about or understand why having printer dust filters is important.
Printer dust in the air where you’re working can cause relatively minor irritations such as coughing, sneezing or watery eyes. By and large, even if we suspect that printer dust is to blame for the symptoms they often soon pass and we tend to dismiss them. If someone in an office suffers symptoms such as these after a printer cartridge has been changed or re-filled, we are even more inclined to ‘accept’ that some printer dust was spilled or escaped during replenishing the printer. This situation is compounded by the fact that we can invariably see the spillage of printer dust, creating a mess that needs clearing up. The real problem is printer dust particles that can escape into the air of an office or work environment during the normal operation of the printer. Whilst you might well be able to ‘see’ a pile of printer dust that has been spilled - each of the individual printer dust particles is between a micron and a nanometer in size, that means they could be as small as one billionth of a meter! That makes small concentrations of printer dust impossible to see - but not impossible to trap with printer dust filters. Printer dust cartridges come in two types: sealed that have to be replaced and ‘open’ that can be re-filled. It doesn’t matter which of these types of cartridge you use - but minute amounts of printer dust can be emitted, usually through he air vent on the printer. Over time the concentration of these dust particles can build up in the air and start to cause problems for workers in the office. However, there is a simple solution - fitting printer dust filters over the air vents of your laser printers, copiers and faxes. Printer dust filters are readily available from a variety of suppliers such as micronAir Office - who supply dry printer dust filters and Dexwet, who supply ‘wet’ printer dust filters.