We All Have Choices
…Being a responsible printer means considering the impact of our manufacturing process on the environment.
Alcohol Free
The use of alcohol in litho printing has been common practise for more than 30 years, it stabilises the water/ink balance and makes printing more forgiving, however, alcohol is a volatile organic compound (VOC) which reacts vigorously with oxygen in the air and in high concentrations can cause illness in print colleagues as well as a risk of fire/explosion – in a nutshell its not very environmentally friendly. That’s why 2 years ago we took the decision to go ALCOHOL FREE, on our new Komori LS526, as we believed it was the right thing to do for our working environment and it something that minimises the impact on the bigger picture. Alcohol free needs everyone to engage, printers and minders need high levels of maintenance and good hygiene. This will reduce costs and result in brighter, cleaner colours with better contrasts improving quality, which is good for everyone.
FSC Sourced Paper
Forest Stewardship Council is an internationally recognised standard, working to protect the worlds forests and indigenous people that inhabit them. Paper and all wood products can be FSC certified. The key to FSC is a ‘Chain of Custody’ – in other words the traceability of the paper from its origin through to the paper mill, merchant and on to the printer.Using a certified printer like ourselves, you are able to use the tick tree logo on certified stocks for printed matter, communicating your support of the important green issues.
Vegetable Based Inks
Some of the pigment used in conventional printing inks contain harmful metallic substances, these can include lead and mercury. The ink itself is petroleum based and needs alcohol-based solvents, as well as alcohol being an VOC so is petroleum and therefore combined they evaporate emitting health and environment hazards. To us the solution was easy, replace conventional inks with vegetable-based inks and reduce the VOC’s dramatically. Petroleum-based inks emit 25 to 40% VOC when dry and vegetable-based inks are as low as 2 to 3%, creating an essentially nonhazardous substance which better still is derived from renewable energy.
Introducing each of the processes has made a difference and we will continue to look for new areas to improve.