Print Issues

Of 12,000 or more printing companies in the UK, only a small minority have taken voluntary steps to reduce their environmental impact over and above the legal requirements.

In the government’s Envirowise Attitudes 2000 survey, print came bottom of the list in terms of the number of firms which had adopted environmental policies.

The paper and print industry is the 4th largest industry in the UK. Printing has a huge impact on the environment and we, as graphic designers, are in a position to do something about it.

LITHOGRAPHY / OFFSET

This section encompasses both sheet-fed and web litho. Details have been given where there are differences in the environmental impacts of the two processes.

There are five main problems with litho printing:

Energy & Emissions

Printers collectively use a significant amount of energy – from electricity to run the presses, to fuel for delivering the finished product.

The industry can adopt measures to reduce energy consumption, such as using voltage optimisers on the presses, driving fuel-efficient delivery vehicles, and switching to green electricity suppliers.

But until measures like these are widespread, energy consumption will keep on creating carbon emissions.

Some printers have adopted so-called ‘carbon neutral’ schemes to offset emissions. However, these are ineffectual unless they address the causes of the emissions.

All the printers on Lovely as a Tree are ISO14001 certified or have the Greenmark standard which means that they have focused on reducing their carbon emissions as well as, in some cases, offsetting them.

Water

In 1995, 92 percent of the global population had a sufficient supply of water. If the world continues to consume water at its current rate, it is projected that water sufficiency in 2050 will be only 58 percent. It is further predicted that nations will go to war over water supplies within the next two decades.

The print industry makes a negative contribution to this situation. Large quantities of water are used in most printing processes (even digital), the exception being waterless printing.

Printers can reduce water usage by recycling the water used on the presses, and for example, by using sprinklers and pressure taps.

At the other end of the process is the issue of water contamination. All printers are legally required to clean waste water before disposal – but some are more rigorous than others.

Waste

The print industry generates relatively high levels of waste. As shown below, a lot this waste can be recycled or reused, but currently much of it ends up in landfill.

• Waste inks and varnishes can be used as low grade fuel or mixed with concrete and buried in 'special (or hazardous) waste landfill'. A large printer could be chucking out around 9000 tins worth of waste ink per year.
• Ink tins are usually crushed and recycled.
• Ink cartridges are often favoured over tins, but although these plastic cartridges waste less ink than tins, they're classed as hazardous waste and usually sent to 'special waste landfill'. More environmentally aware printers will pay for them to be collected and recycled into drainpipes etc. A large litho printer could be generating around 800,000 of these cartridges per year.
• Waste chemicals (solvents, developer, fixer). In a year a large printer could chuck out around 65,000 litres of waste solvent and 85,000 litres of waste developer. Responsible printers will make sure they're either used as 3rd grade fuel or that they undergo ‘bio-digestion’ to make the chemicals safe before before flushing them into the water course.
• Wooden pallets are usually sent to landfill, but are occasionally recycled into chipboard.
• Plastic wrapping will usually be sent to landfill. However, if recyclable, it can be washed, shredded and recycled into more plastic wrapping.
• CDs and cases are usually sent to landfill, although they can also be ground up, washed in caustic solution to remove the ink and foil, and then re-used.

Solvents

One particularly harmful solvent is isopropyl alcohol (IPA), used as a dampening solution. As it dries it releases VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) – colourless gases that contribute to the production of ozone, as well as being hazardous to pressroom workers.

It is possible to avoid using IPAs by operating and maintaining machinery to the highest standard or converting to waterless or alcohol-free technology. Reducing IPA in the dampening solution can also make the print dry faster, using less energy.

Inks

For litho inks there are five main areas of concern:

• Heavy metals such as barium, copper and zinc are contained in certain pigments and can result in environmental and worker health hazards. Generally, metallic and fluorescent inks are the most toxic. Metallic inks in particular do not decompose as easily as other inks and the heavy metal component causes problems by leaching into groundwater.
• Non-renewable resources are less of a problem than they used to be as very few sheet-fed inks contain non-renewable mineral (petroleum) oils these days, but heatset web inks still contain 30-35% mineral oil.
• VOCs (volatile organic compounds) are emitted from mineral (petroleum) based inks as they dry, which are damaging to human health and contribute to global warming. This is a problem for web printing (especially heatset) but rarely applies to sheet-fed litho inks which are now almost always vegetable oil based.
• Soya – these days, instead of containing mineral (petroleum) oil, sheet-fed inks typically contain three parts linseed to one part soya. So by using vegetable oil based inks you're reducing worker and environmental health hazards and avoiding using a non-renewable resource. However, there has been much controversy surrounding the huge expansion of the worldwide soya industry, so this is not a black and white issue. Read more
• Waste ink can be recycled and made into low grade fuel or mixed to form black ink and then re-used. However, as ink is pretty toxic stuff, it's usually incarcerated in concrete in 'special (hazardous) waste' landfill sites.

What you can do

Use less ink by reducing areas of ink coverage in your design (eg. solid colours and dark full bleed photographs). This will also make your product easier to recycle.

Avoid using fluorescent colours which only come as petroleum-based inks.

Metallics have traditionally only been available as petroleum-based inks, but a vegetable oil version has just come onto the market so ask your printer if they're using these yet.

DIGITAL

There are some huge environmental advantages to printing digitally:

• You can run a job as and when needed
• Re-printing costs no extra, so there is no need to print 5000 extra copies in case you run out
• No make ready waste

Downsides:

• Digital inks are currently difficult to remove in the recycling process
• The choice of paper can be limited to approved papers, which are rarely recycled or FSC certified
• Large amounts of energy are used in the manufacturing of the machines themselves

However, new, more energy efficient printers are coming onto the market all the time, such as Konica Minolta’s Bizhub C550 and C6500; and Océ’s VarioPrint 6000 which reduces the amount of energy used during its production.

SCREEN PRINTING

The inks used in screen printing traditionally contained more solvents than litho inks. However these days, many screen printers use UV inks, cured under a UV lamp. This uses more energy, but has the advantage of cutting solvents out of the printing process, although solvents are still used for clearing up.

PRINTERS' ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS

Printing has the lowest take-up of environmental policies of any major industry (source: Envirowise Attitudes 2000 survey).

This is a great shame, because there are several voluntary schemes to help printers improve their environmental performance. The emphasis of these schemes is on continual improvement – so the longer a company has been accredited the more progress it will have made.

The main scheme undertaken by UK printers is ISO 14001 – but for smaller printers especially, the cost can be prohibitive. So schemes such as Greenmark and the British Printing Industry Federation (BPIF), are a good compromise, and offer a stepping-stone towards ISO 14001.

And for truly committed larger printers, EMAS sets the highest environmental standards.