Particles from laser printers may pose health risk, study shows

Some laser printers emit volumes of health-damaging particles at a rate similar to cigarettes, researchers in Australia found.

Investigators at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, tested 62 printers in an inner-city office and found 17 that emitted levels of tiny pollutants more than 10 times those in regular office air.

So-called ultrafine particles are smaller than one-tenth of one-millionth of a meter. They are easily inhaled into the lungs, and have been linked to respiratory illness, heart problems and lung cancer in previous tests.

"There should be more studies on printers, and once there is more information, people could be guided on what printers to buy, and what not to buy, and that would have an impact on manufacturers," said Lidia Morawska, who led the research at the university's International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health.

The printers were tested over 48 hours in an air-conditioned office building, where they were shown to increase the amount of particles in the air as much as fivefold during office hours compared to the air outside. The findings are published today in the online version of Environmental Science & Technology.

Printers emitted more pollutants when operating with newer toner cartridges, and when printing documents that required greater quantities of toner, the powder used in laser printers instead of ink. The researchers didn't study the chemical make-up of the particles they detected, Morawska said.