Every day, astronomical numbers of letters are being typed, printed, and read across the world. I am typing hundreds of letters as I am writing this article. In the process, endless amounts of ink are being used with considerable impacts to the environment. It is estimated that a single workplace uses 240 liters of water during the entire lifecycle of a printing toner.

      There have been various efforts to reduce the impact that ink causes on the environment. Companies have developed plant- based inks and toner recycling systems. But a company in the Netherlands has a much brighter idea: ECOFONT. It is basically a font with little holes in it so that it would use less ink when printed.

         It may seem too simple to reduce ink use effectively, but the results are surprising. The fonts could reduce as much as 50% of ink use according to Ecofont BV, the company that developed these fonts. Furthermore, an organization with 1000 workplaces could reduce CO2 emissions by 10 tons.

        The company offers Ecofonts varying from Arial, Verdana, and Calibri to Times New Roman and Trebuchet MS. The only bad thing is that the company only offers trial versions, and you have to pay about $30 to use them for unlimited time. But there?s no need to worry, because there is a free version. NAVER, the largest search engine in Korea offers two free ecofonts: Nanum Gothic Eco and Nanum Myeongjo Eco. You can type Korean as well as alphabet with these two fonts. You can get it at http://hangeul.naver.com/font. If you want to download any other Ecofonts or get more information, visit the company website http://www.ecofont.com/.