Printer toner, depending on who you ask, is cancerogenic.

Or not.

The Material Safety Data Sheets I’ve seen, say not.  But I still wouldn’t breath toner in.

Now some of the printers I’ve worked on over the years, have conspired to leak toner over me. 

There was the StorageTek mainframe printer, with the toner hopper.  You’d open the 5 litre toner container and pour the toner into the hopper.  Great clouds of toner would float up and cover the FNG* tasked to refill the toner.  And because of this, it was only ever the FNG who had to refill the toner on this printer.

The DataProducts LZR960.   You know, you could ship most laser printers and not be to worried that they survive the journey.  The LZR960?  Like a nervous puppy, it would leak toner when the shipping box “This Way Up” sign was not rigorously followed.  Resulting in me being covered in toner, and one expensive service bill later.

Things have gotten better over time, and since I had not had toner leaked on me for a few years, I thought

how much toner was left in the Lanier|Ricoh Photocopier toner cartridge when it said it was “out of toner”?*

An impressively small amount as it turns out.  I’m very impressed that Lanier|Ricoh are not ripping me off on toner.

Other things.

• In theory, the cartridge is designed to be disassembled.
  Theory is good, but I used a Dremel tool.
• Cartridge seemed very well engineered.
• Benefit of hindsight, I would have cut the other end of the cartridge off.  This would have allowed me to have a nice pile like The Angry Technician did.
• You should wash toner off with COLD soapy water.
  Warm or hot water will cause the toner to bind to you.

* Friendly New Guy
* idea first seen over at The Angry Technician.