Are laser printers dangerous for your health?

I recently heard that office laser printers can emit toxic fumes and particles that can cause cancer and respiratory illnesses. This made me concerned because I sit right next to one (a Ricoh Aficio SP 5100 N model). How can I find out if this printer is among the most dangerous ones (the high emitters)?Are laser printers dangerous for your health?
The printers that produce ozone are the ones that you are probably referring to as it was mentioned in the news a short time ago. Usually only very large printers still use this technology, but desktops and mid-size printers have moved away from this. You can usually smell the ozone being produced if they are that type.





Ozone producing printers use what they call corotron or scorotron wires to produce the charge, transfer %26amp; detack voltages for printing. Most of the desktop printers made today use electrostatic rollers instead of the wires and do not produce ozone. It's been a long time since I've seen one made with wires. You should be pretty safe with the one you mentioned, but the only way to know for sure would be to know if it uses rollers instead of wires for the high voltage charges that I mentioned above. I can't tell unless I saw one first hand.





The toner dust that was mentioned by someone else is usually very, very minimal and I wouldn't be concerned about that. If that was a concern I don't think you'd see laser printers everywhere, especially hospitals where they are everywhere (nursing stations, offices, clean rooms, etc.) I've even seen them in clean rooms where they make the silicon wafers for computer chips.





I wouldn't worry too much, but if you don't feel comfortable near it I'm sure you could request that it be moved to another location.Are laser printers dangerous for your health?
Not really unless you plan on standing right next to it for a hundred years sucking in the toner particles all day. It does emit a low dosage of toner emissions in the air which are considered to be a carcinogen, but seriously it would be like fifth or sixth hand smoking. I'm a toner tech.