My fellow commenters need to gather their brain cells a bit more. This campaign is for office copiers and printers, not Printing companies. We do print off more than we need to in our office spaces. Emails don't need to be printed and this "single day of awareness" would not interrupt any large print jobs that are being prepped to print or scheduled to print. I can't believe the level of intelligence that people can't recognize what Toshiba is talking about here.

If you truly want to have a practical impact. Do this on a weekend, so that everyone can participate. It is foolish and unpractical to think ANY printing company is going to shut down production for one day during the week. Boneheads!

I say let's have a DON'T BUY TOSHIBA YEAR.... I for one will not buy any of their products. I was going to buy one of their TVs, not anymore....

Greenwash is an unfortunate and growing phenomenon as marketing departments jump on the sustainability bandwagon. In what is one of the most blatant examples of greenwashing a division of Toshiba, Toshiba America Business Solutions, has announced that 23 October 2012 will be ‘National No-Print Day’. On this day Toshiba proposes to ‘raise awareness of the impact printing has on our planet’ and of ‘the role of paper in the workplace’, They are asking people and companies not to print or copy anything that day. This campaign is backed up by a number of contentious and unsourced claims designed to support this ill-conceived initiative. There are many flaws surrounding Toshiba's campaign including: • Toshiba seems to have ignored the environmental impact of electronic communications. Just saying you are eliminating print and paper really does not mean you are necessarily helping the planet. It's a lot more complex than that. If the alternative is, for example, electronic communication, then what is the environmental impact of this? Greenpeace have identified electronic waste as the fastest growing component of the municipal waste steam. (1) • Toshiba has linked paper use to deforestation (or killing trees and destroying forests) when, in fact, responsibly made paper can be a sustainable way to communicate. Paper is a highly recycled commodity in Europe, with a recycling rate approaching 70 per cent. (2) Does Toshiba recycle its products so effectively? We think not. • Paper is based on wood, a natural and renewable material. Electronic equipment, ink and toner cartridges, including those with the Toshiba brand, are made mostly from non-renewable resources and are not so easily recycled. Has Toshiba considered the life cycle of all of its own products before professing expertise on others? • What do the thousands of men and women employed by Toshiba to manufacture, sell and distribute copiers, printers and toner cartridges world-wide think about this campaign?

This nationwide campaign has been designed to encourage, educate, and challenge individuals and companies to commit to one day of “no printing” and to raise awareness of the impact printing has on our planet. Needless to say, we find such a proposal ridiculous and an insult to the more than 800,000 Americans who directly owe their livelihood to our industry. Toshiba claims that our industry has failed “to make the link between printing waste and its negative impacts on our landfills, natural resources and the environment.” This is patently untrue. Our industry has long led the way in utilizing sustainable processes. The primary raw material for printing is paper, which comes from trees, which are a renewable resource—so renewable that today our country has 20 percent more trees than it did on the first Earth Day which was held more than 40 years ago. Printing is the only medium with a one-time carbon footprint—all other media require energy every time they are viewed. Electronic devices, which Toshiba produces, for example, require the mining and refining of dozens of minerals and metals, as well as the use of plastics, hydrocarbon solvents, and other non-renewable resources. Moreover 50–80 percent of electronic waste collected for recycling is shipped overseas and is often unsafely dismantled. For Toshiba to call for such a ban on printing is hypocritical to say the least.

Paper is biodegradable. You would rather have it in landfills instead of computers.