Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have found a way to turn waste plastics into functional carbon “microspheres,” Chemical & Engineering News reports.

Carbon microspheres are small particles that can be used to make tires, paint, lubricants and — you guessed it — toner.

The scientists are targeting some of the most commonly thrown away plastic products, including grocery bags and polystyrene cups.

No word on when the process will be used to make commercial goods, but when it happens, it could be good news for the environment — and toner prices.

According to a recent survey by printer manufacturer Lexmark, here are the top five printer-related concerns from US small-to-midsize businesses:

1. Cost of consumables — No surprise here. Most offices are populated with printers and multifunctionals that cost a small fortune in ink and toner to keep running. Worst of all, those costs tend to be hidden both from the employees and from management, since most businesses don’t have a clear method for centralizing and tracking those costs.

2. Cost of paper – Actually, paper prices have declined considerably since they peaked in 2007, though that decline has leveled off recently. And while paper itself is far less expensive than toner and ink on a per page basis, it is still a major expense. Some companies are making progress in reducing paper use through more digital file delivery and with two-sided printing, but truckloads of paper are still the norm for most businesses.

3. Paper jams – This perennial problem still drives office workers crazy. Though the paper transport systems of most newer printers have been improved considerably, paper still can get jammed, thanks to poor paper storage practices, among other reasons. The problem is compounded when you have printers and copiers where the paper path is hard to reach.

4. Maximizing toner and ink use – Here, the problem is often machines that inform the user that they are out of ink or toner long before they really are. One solution is buying machines that have larger capacity consumables, so the situation occurs less often. The other solution is to ignore the warming and just run the printer till it goes dry, then replace.

5. Frequent replacement of supplies – This is related to #4. Smaller printers with small-capacity replacement cartridges, are the enemy of productivity. When a machine needs new supplies, someone has to find supplies (hopefully you have some in stock), take out the old cartridge (hopefully recyclable), and insert the new one (often a slightly tricky process). All of this is an unproductive delay, and the more often it occurs, the more likelihood of having problems — like running out of supplies and having to wait for a reorder.

Our take: Most offices have far more printing devices than they need, and too many have cheap private printers on desktops. Consolidating the number of printers and replacing them with larger shared workgroup models with low costs per page and larger capacity consumables and two-sided printing will solve most of these problems.

Change the default font of your e-mail system.

That’s what Diane Blohowiak, director of computing at the University of Wisconsin Green-Bay, recommends.

To save money when students print e-mails, the school announced it was changing the default font in students’ e-mails from Arial to Century Gothic.

That font uses 30% less toner than Arial, Blohowiak says.

From previously unimagined uses of printers to an unhealthy fascination with dead celebrities’ documents, we saw a lot of strange stories in 2009. Here are the top 10:

1. Michael Jackson’s death certificate hacked by Coroner’s Dept. employees

Is nothing sacred? Where computer systems are concerned, it seems not. More…

2. Don’t toss used paper — flush it

A new machine promises to help businesses give discarded sheets of paper a second life. A short, but not so sweet second life. More…

3. Police mistake toner cartridge for a bomb

A toner cartridge was recently caused an unusual amount of excitement in a Pennsylvania town. More…

4. Print out your dinner

Of all the things printers have been used for, here’s one you may not have considered: More…

5. Drunk worker keeps his job because of printer malfunction

Anyone working in an office knows how much trouble equipment glitches can cause. But here’s a case where a printer problem put one business in an unusual predicament. More…

6. Paper that erases itself: Coming soon?

All offices have to balance the need to cut paper use with employees’ reliance on paper documents. Here’s an innovation that might soon let you achieve that balance. More….

7. Used toner cartridge? Sit on it

Here’s a creative new use for those spent toner and ink jet cartridges. More…

8. Feds try to buy back their own printers

If you required users to return office equipment, would you pay them for bringing back something the company already owns? One government agency thought that was necessary. More…

9. Monks bless green printing

It’s not the most obvious place to get your supplies, but a religious order in Wisconsin is one of the latest businesses to sell soy-based toner and ink. More…

10. A new use for copier paper

Here’s a scientific breakthrough that comes under the category: “What will they think of next?” More…

The calls came into Skaggs Hospital in Branson, MO, offering them a “deal” on a new supply of toner. However, the price offered was actually three or four times what the supplies would normally cost.

Hospital officials said the scammers normally call employees with no experience making toner purchases. Often the caller will say he’s previously called the CFO, who said it’s OK for the employee to authorize the purchase.

Also, the callers try to justify the cost by claiming their cartridges have higher capacities and print more pages, when in reality, there’s nothing special about them.

To combat these s0-called “toner pirates,” Skaggs’ purchasing coordinator Jeanette Ashord regularly sends employees e-mails reminding them not to authorize purchases from unkown sellers.

An office building in Allentown, Pa., was evacuated after the arrival of a suspicious package. Police ordered the evacuation after the box was noticed next to a flower pot outside.

A bomb squad took an X-ray of the box, which proved inconclusive, so the package was blown up.

Turns out, the “bomb” was actually a harmless toner cartridge.

As for what the cartridge was doing on the sidewalk, police guessed it may have been part of a mail-in sales promotion, the Morning Call reports.

Almost 25% of companies say employee theft has become a bigger problem than they’re used to in the past year, according to a recent survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity.

No surprise here: The common items taken were office supplies like  ink and toner cartridges.

In one extreme example of toner theft, a former Penn State University employee was recently arrested for embezzling nearly $45,000. Her method: She’d buy ink and toner cartridges on the university’s dime, resell them to an office supply store and pocket the cash.

She was caught after a budget administrator noticed a large uptick in the amount of toner being purchased.

Toner and ink are attractive targets for dishonest employees: They’re small and easy to take home. Also, companies purchase them on a constant basis, making it difficult to notice irregular and suspicious activity.

Some ways to prevent theft: Keep cartridges locked up, remind employees that taking supplies home is not OK, and regularly audit purchasing records.

Here’s an organization you can hold up as a model of efficient paper and toner use — a bad model.

Despite all the federal government’s resources and repeated waste-reduction directives, your business can definitely do better when it comes to out-of-control office printing costs.

According to a new report by Lexmark, the federal government spends an estimated $1.3 billion each year on employee printing — of which $440.4 million could easily be saved, Lexmark says.

That’s more than four times the $100 million Obama recently asked federal agencies to trim from their budgets.

How are the feds managing to waste so much cash? It’s largely a lack of policies and education, the report suggests. A large majority (89%) of federal employees say their agencies have no formal printing policy in place. As a result of the lack of communication:

• The average federal employee prints 7,200 pages a year — throwing about 2,500 in the trash the same day they’re printed
• Most (92%) employees admit they don’t need everything they print, and
• 64% say it would be possible to print significantly fewer documents.

Employees in the private sector would probably report similar numbers. Like the feds, many companies could do a better job keeping expensive, unnecessary printing under control.

Steps to take

Why do employees print so much? In the survey, employees cited:

• the need for physical sign-off on reviewed documents
• the ease of sharing and distributing documents on paper, and
• a preference for editing hard copies.

To cut paper use, Lexmark advises agencies to use automating double-sided printing, ID cards to track individuals’ printing habits, and electronic signatures for documents whenever possible.

It may be a while before the government implements any of those changes, but it sounds like advice that could apply to any business.

The factory is planned to be built in Japan. The company pointed to a recession-based drop in worldwide demand as the reason for the delay. This is the second time the company has delayed the plant.

The drop-off in demand for consumables is a serious concern for all companies in the industry. It’s even more important than a decline in machine sales, since the real margins for the manufacturers are in supplies. As a Reuters report puts it:

“Consumable items such as toners and related services are an important source of profit for office equipment makers as they generally fetch high margins and provide a constant revenue stream.”

The latest trick in office supply scams: fooling inexperienced employees into authorizing big purchases the company doesn’t need.

A TV station in Seattle is the latest business to fall for the trick. Here’s what happened, according to Jesse Jones of KING-TV:

An operations administrator for the station’s sales department got a phone call from a company known as National Imaging Systems. The caller identified himself as a representative for the station’s toner supplier. It was time to send a new order, he said, and he just needed to confirm the station’s shipping address.

Not knowing the ins-and-outs of the company’s purchasing methods, she said OK and gave the caller the address. Big mistake.

The station had never done business with National Imaging Systems before. Soon, the company received a box of six cartridges and a bill for $1,600.

The same thing happened to another Seattle business, Real Time Productions. This time, the call was from a supplier called Capitol Imaging Systems. Toner was sent, along with a bill for $637 — even though the company’s real supplier was already sending toner every month, pre-paid.

After months of phone calls and legal threats, KING-TV eventually got its money back.

Train employees

The Better Business Bureau warns that this type of scam becomes more common during the summer, when key employees may be on vacation and many companies are staffed with temporary workers. Those employees may easily be duped into ordering shoddy, overpriced supplies.

To keep your company from getting duped, the BBB recommends training employees who answer telephones not to authorize the ordering of any supplies (and not to “verify” any information for an unknown vendor). Admins and other employees should respond to all unsolicited offers by stating, “I am not authorized to order anything. You will have to speak to the person in charge of ordering supplies and get a purchase order.”