With global warming impacting the environment, printing companies and companies in many other industries are trying to do their part in keeping the ozone layer thick and to limit the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases come from driving cars, heating homes and businesses with natural gas or oil and using electricity generated from coal-fired power plants. The 10 warmest years on record have all taken place since 1990. Glaciers and sea ice are melting, leading to the near extinction of polar bears and other animals.
Printing companies have taken measures to help the environment in their printing processes and in the inks and papers they use. Here are a few of those greener options printing companies have to choose from. Check with your printing company to see if it uses any of these methods; if not, start searching for another printing company so you can feel good about ordering everything from your color business cards to your brochures. Your colors and quality of your materials will look just as good as conventional methods and you can feel good about helping the environment.
Green paper options
Post-consumer waste paper (PCW) uses recycled products in production. This prevents slashing virgin tree fibers and preserves forests and biodiversity. In the U.S., 90 percent of paper comes from virgin tree fiber, which means that 90 percent of our paper comes from destroying forests. Printing companies that use PCW for their products decrease the number of trees that are cut down each year.
Paper gets its nice white color from being bleached with chlorine or chlorine derivatives. These chemicals cause toxins and pollutants that harm people as well as other living things in the environment. Ask your printer if they use paper that processed chlorine free.
Green ink options
The most commonly used printing ink is petroleum-based and it has harmful VOCs (volatile organic compounds). VOCs might have short- and long-term adverse health effects, like birth defects or even cancer, according to the EPA. More testing needs to be done, but concentrations of VOCs are up to 10 times higher indoors than outdoors, which posts risks for workers of printing companies.
VOCs are released when the ink dries on the paper. These inks have great staying power – when they are sitting in a landfill, the ink can filter into the soil and can contaminate the soil.
Try to find a printing company that uses alternative inks, like soy-based inks instead of petroleum-based inks. Soy-based inks contain much less VOCs. Inks based in vegetable oil are another green alternative.
A lot of water is used in the traditional printing process to cool the ink, so try to find a printer that uses waterless printing. According to the Waterless Printing Association, “Many printers have been drawn to waterless printing because it eliminates dampening-related volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the printing process…. Now, with the release of water-washable inks, the waterless pressroom can be virtually VOC-free. This revolutionary ink technology eliminates the need for solvent-based press and blanket wash solutions, which typically account for a large portion of a printer's VOC output….”
So, using greener inks and greener paper not only helps the environment for the long-term, but it also helps the people working in those printing areas immediately. With “green” being the new buzzword of the day, just having green practices in your printing can net you business you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten.
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