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Environment

Printing industry 95% green: survey

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by Daniel Fitzgerald  | 2 Comments 

The next step forward would be Printing Companies expecting vendors (i.e. INK manufacturers) to be certified or close to certification to the internal Environmental Standard - ISO 14001. Posted by D. Maternowski,  Nov 14, 2008 3:13 AM Report

How many printers are driving hybrid cars these days or installing solar panels to reduce electricity usage? We need to take advantage of Green Marketing. It’s a requirement set by our customers that we can’t afford to ignore. I personally drive a 6.0L V8 and work for a chemical and rubber products manufacturer. However, I also have a keen interest for the environment but how do we balance our beliefs with our interests, without compromising our lively hood or our passions? This leads me to the view that we need to have a realistic responsibility when it comes to the products we use and the waste that we generate. Not just for the environment but also for our health and the future of the Printing Industry. Many people can get caught up with appearing green rather than being realistic in their approach to actually becoming green. Also the criteria for reducing VOC emissions can be very confusing and easily misunderstood by suppliers and end users alike. The Printing Industry went mad on vegetable oil based inks due their perceived environmental advantages over mineral oil based products. Soy oil seems to be our preferred choice yet soybean farming is one of the major causes of deforestation and slave labor. In turn Soybean farming is becoming a major cause of global warming counteracting it’s effectiveness as a renewable resource. To be genuinely green our responsibility would need to start way before we receive the product on the press. The chemistry we use shouldn’t impact the environment or the health of the manufacturers any more than it should impact the end user. Reduced cost or improved performance is no consolation for people and their families suffering or caring for someone with a chemical induced illness. Sometimes going green can be as simple as using a paste rather than a liquid to minimize waste, or using a more effective solvent to minimize usage. The general rule is, if you use less, you’re taking less from the environment. In some instances this would mean increasing the initial purchase cost. In today’s economic climate it can be very difficult to justify an increased cost. We need educate our accountants to look deeper into our numbers and calculate downtime, usage, extended roller/blanket life, etc… vs. the initial cost in order to understand the real savings and environmental advantage. It’s now more common to find companies that recycle waste solvent for use as fuels and collect the waste solvent at no charge to the printer. Going green takes real commitment and a realistic approach. We manufacture a solvent that is 100% VOC free and above 110°C flash. We also have a solvent that is formulated from a renewable resource such as Palm Oil and can reduce the VOC content by 50% and is 96°C flash. To date we have sold very little of these products to the sheetfed sector as “green” washes have higher flash points and don’t perform as well as the solvents we are used to using such as fogra washes with a flash of 66°C. VOC free washes need to be above 110°C flash in order to meet the stringent VOC test of “Test Method 24” and the European “Vapor pressure test”. Anything with a flash point below 110°C could not be considered VOC free with our current technology. Test Method 24 proceeds as follows: “One-half gram of the liquid is weighed into an open cup and placed in an oven heated to 110°C (230°F) for one hour. The cup of liquid is removed, cooled and weighed again. The weight difference is considered to be VOC if the liquid doesn’t contain any exempt solvents such as Acetone or Chlorinated solvents. Also water content is subtracted”. Vapor pressure is another method for testing the VOC content of a solvent. This is done by using a glass instrument similar to a barometer. The evaporation of the VOC will push a thin column of Mercury up a glass tube. The vapor pressure is measured as the height of the mercury in millimeters. The EPA vapor pressure rule states that any blanket or roller wash Posted by Jason Kennedy,  Nov 18, 2008 5:19 PM Report