In a method for improving the printing quality for electrographic color printing, print consumables, particularly toner, are monitored in container-exact fashion and substance-specific information are employed for the control of the printing process. Toner expiration dates for the consumables are identified and noted early at the respective printing location. The consumable contained in the container and the amount of consumable contained is thus stored in machine-readable fashion at the container. An information carrier is provided at the container for non-contacting transmission of data and energy from a data read and/or write station to the container. A transponder that is provided with an individual hardware identifier is provided as the information carrier. The hardware identifier may be employed as a component part of codes for device control. The printer or copier system disclosed includes a recycling concept for consumables containers. One and the same container is multiply employed, and the current container content can be acquired container-individually at any time by machine. The containers are provided with the information carrier that contains the machine-readably encoded information about the current or more recently contained consumable situated in the container. A module that can be electronically written and read in non-contacting fashion is employed as the information carrier, particularly the transponder. The data stored in the transponder can be supplied to other system components such as a filling station, a central computer with a data bank, and the printer or copier devices.