All manufacturers of printers, printer inks and other printing supplies are required to provide a materials safety data sheet or MSDS for all their products. Hewlett-Packard, being one of the leading manufacturers of printers, inks and printing supplies, is not exempt from this requirement. In fact, HP does comply with the ruling, and there are various MSDS's found on their website for every printer ink cartridge that they produce.



How to Search for an MSDS for an HP Laser Printer Cartridge

There are indeed various MSDS's found on the HP website for every HP laser printer cartridge currently available. In order to search for the MSDS of the particular HP laser printer cartridge you are using, all you need to do is to go to the HP homepage, which is www.hp.com. Once there, scroll down and click on the Company Information Tab.

What will come up is the HP Eco-Solutions page. On the menu bar of this page can be found the link to the MSDS's released by HP for their HP laser printer cartridges. You can browse by country and language or by product code.

A Sample HP Laser Printer Cartridge MSDS

To check out what the MSDS of a typical HP laser printer cartridge, we pulled out a sample among those listed on the HP website. Here is what we got for the HP LaserJet 92274A, which is a toner formulation used for the LaserJet 4L/4ML and 4P/4MP.

? Health hazards. The ink used in this HP laser printer cartridge should not be inhaled or come into direct contact with the skin. While it has a low toxicity level, it can cause mild irritations when inhaled or come into contact with the skin. It should not be digested either.

? First aid treatment. If in case the product is inhaled by accident, or perhaps swallowed or come into contact with the skin or the eyes, immediate first aid treatment is necessary. If the eyes are affected, the ink should be flushed out with warm water. Washing the affected area with mild soap and water usually works when the ink touches the skin.

? Fire hazard. The ink itself is not flammable, as stated in its MSDS, but if ever the printer model that is using this HP laser printer cartridge catches fire, it should be treated as an electrical fire.

Safe as its MSDS makes the HP LaserJet 92274A printer ink seem to be, the document still advises users of this HP laser printer cartridge to keep the product away from the reach of children, to avoid any possible harm to them.