Will this mess up my printer?

I’ve got an HP inkjet printer, and lately I’ve been trying to save money by recycling paper–that is, by taking paper that I’ve already used to print on one side, and printing on the other side. Will this damage or shorten the life of my printer in any way?

Thanks,

Zarathustra

Long-term, your biggest problem will be with an accumulation of ink on the paper-handling rollers, which will not be much of a problem if they are hard plastic but which might be trouble if they are softish rubber.

Short-term, you’re going to have paper jam problems from using paper which is slightly curled as a result of having been sprayed with wet ink. This is minor to insignificant, I feel, and will be a minimal problem if your printer feeds its paper straight-through without ever wrapping it around and changing its direction. If it does change direction, then you might have annoying paper jams from time to time.

Good luck.

An excessively fussy printer might jam due to the paper having been given a slight curve in one direction on its first pass through the printer. Also, if you used paper that was special on one side for better print quality in an inkjet, you won’t get that quality the second time through, but you probably knew that.

And technically, this is reusing, not recycling. Know your Three R’s for Life in a Better World!

I’ve been doing this for years with my Canon BJ-200, BJ-4200, a Sharp fax machine, and a Canon photocopier. I can’t see how the life of any of these components has been shortened because of a little environmentally responsible thrift.

Thanks, all.