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Questions to Ask When Buying Green Printing
Hiring a printer may not be as stressful or as important as buying a car, house or business, but it’s no less daunting especially when facing today’s economic stress. Adding to the stress is making the purchase that not only suits your needs, but also the environment.
With anything you buy, you always have to ask questions. Most importantly:
What is the environmental impact of this purchase? What is the financial impact if I buy green?
These are two good questions to ask before you even start the design process. Asking them is a great first step toward reducing the environmental impact of your purchases, and possibly reducing costs as well. The environmental impact from buying comes primarily in the use (and non-use) of natural resources to manufacture the products in the first place. If you don’t buy environmental products, you eliminate its impact.
Consider soy or waterless ink printing.
When buying your printer, explore whether your catalog can be printed with an alternative ink that has a less volatile organic compound like soy ink, a vegetable-based ink.
Per Wikipedia, volatile organic compounds are organic chemical compounds that have high enough vapor pressures under normal conditions to significantly vaporize and enter the earth’s atmosphere.
Waterless printing
The best way to find a good printer is to use one that comes highly recommended and is well-suited to the type of printing you need. Don’t be afraid to ask around. If you know someone who does business printing, find out which print vendors they use and for which types of jobs.
Reduce Your Paper Needs.
Once you’ve selected your paper, determine if you can reduce the amount of paper needed through trim size and weight. First, find out from your printer how well the trim size of your catalog matches its press equipment. Is it an efficient size that produces very little waste, or is significant excess paper being trimmed to produce your catalog? Talk with your printer about what press options are available, and work together to get your job printed on a press that minimizes waste.
Next, see if you can reduce the weight for your catalog and cover. The lighter the weight of the paper, the less fiber used in production. As an added bonus, your postage costs will be lower, as well.
Ask about the paper.
The proper materials are an important component of a good print job. Ink comes in a vast array of colors, and there are almost as many paper types, textures, weights, and name brands to choose from and the great thing is almost all paper companies are using recycled products to produce its paper. You don’t want your great print job wasted on the paper that isn’t recycled.
Other questions to ask are affordability, how complex the jobs the printer will do and will the vendors have proper parts and materials in case they are needed and are they accessible at any time. Evaluate your needs.
Once you decide on a vendor and which materials to use, have the rep walk you through the printing process before it starts. Understand the timeline of the project; be sure you know when you’re able to make changes and at what point the option to make changes costs extra. Cultivate relationships with local businesses. They could help you in your quest to go green.
Together, you will make the proper progress.
Environmentally-Friendly Full Color Printing
Green means “go” in many ways.
On a traffic light, it means to proceed. In auto racing, the green flag signifies the start of the race, and the beginning of full racing after a cautionary period. It means everything is safe to proceed at full speed. In the environmental world, green is the color, symbol, and word for biodegradable and nature-friendly.
Arguably, green is the color of the past decade and one that’s causing a lot of debate between environmentalists and big businesses. And for now it seems the environmentalists are winning this war of attrition.
But that’s a good thing.
And the printing world is paying attention.
Just as other industries are taking a hard look at policies and practices that impact the environment, many in the paper industry have taken this challenge seriously. Some pulp and paper companies, and printers have committed to principles of corporate and social environmental responsibility, and organizations have formed to help define, recognize and credit those efforts.
It’s nothing new. For years printers have used recycled paper and paper products to conduct business. Lately, they’re now using biodegradable soy ink instead of others that could potentially harm the environment and people.
Printers who haven’t gone green yet though have many questions.
“Do I have to request a ‘green quote’ in order to receive eco-friendly printing?”
“Is green printing as good as conventional?”
“Is it expensive?”
“Where can I get the green equipment?”
“Is my competitor going green?”
“If so, how does the customer feel about it?”
“What’s in it for me besides helping the environment, I mean, is it profitable?”
We’ve discussed green printing on other posts here, here, and here (will link to three green posts), and we’ve come to one inescapable conclusion. Green printing is a popular decision and no more expensive than previously “non-green” methods.
Aside from environmentally-friendly paper products, many companies are creating ink from soy ink instead of petroleum, eliminating harmful fumes in the process and allowing for quicker drying. Printing houses produce what are known as volatile organic compounds, which are caused by the use of petroleum-based inks, laminates, varnishes and adhesives.
Past studies have shown that these compounds, when inhaled, greatly increase the risk of asthma attacks and other breathing ailments. As a result, measures are being adopted by many printers worldwide to comply with existing regulations and adopt environment-friendly practices.
By doing this and recycling and reusing paper and other supplies whenever possible, printing companies will be practicing what green printing is.
Higher Costs Reducing Enthusiasm for Green Printing
In today’s economy, it makes sense to work with the least expensive materials. But as the push for environmentally-friendly manufacturing and printing increases. it also makes sense to work with green materials.
The term “green” is widely used to describe any material designed and constructed with minimal negative impact to the environment and with an emphasis on conservation of resources, energy efficiency and healthier.
Green printing techniques have been around for many years, but have only begun to really become mainstream recently. Some of the main components of green printing include using recycled paper, recycling any paper waste produced while printing, switching to vegetable based inks that have low volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and using new technologies such as digital printers.
But with all the attention turning to “going green” in every day items, one thing that prohibits many from switching to green totally is the costs. It isn’t cheap and it doesn’t figure to get any cheaper in today’s recession.
According to a March 17 Graphic Arts Online article, printers are intensifying their
green efforts, but economic pressures are curbing customer zeal for paying the up-charge for sustainable printing. Pricing is the issue and as a result, there’s been a decrease in the use of green printing.
Despite this, it’s still important for printing companies to switch to new eco-friendly printing technologies. This benefits everyone, especially future generations, but the important thing is that ultimately the price will go down. New technology, whether it’s printers, computers, DVD players or other mechanical devices, are all expensive at first, but as demand goes up and competition increases, prices will ultimately come down.
The impact will be huge. New digital printing equipment combined with soy-based inks and recycled paper can make a different for the environment. Petroleum products are being eliminated from this process, helping eliminate any harmful emissions. This includes VOCs that can cause serious problems when inhaled by humans as well as significant damage to the ozone.
Recycling is also a huge factor when it comes to green printing as it really help save trees from being cut down. A major concern with using recycled paper is the quality of the paper. As it turns out, there is no longer a quality difference in normal paper as compared to recycled.
Many companies that have started to use these environmentally-friendly printing techniques without sacrificing quality or raising there prices.
One company, PS Print in Oakland, Calif., has provided green printing with affordable prices for years. They use recycled paper on many of their products, but they also recycle any paper waste that is made during the printing process. PS Print also makes heavy use of soy-based inks on all of their printing products. They also have printing locations on the East Coast, which reduces shipping costs for the company, thus reducing costs and carbon emissions.
So while the concern that green prices are going higher, PS Print and other companies are showing that it’s possible to stay green and without going in the red.
Green Printing Solutions for your Desktop Printer
We’re all about green printing here at Lloyd’s of Indiana. UV inks, soy inks, and recycled paper all used in the printing industry.
But once in a while, we find something so cool outside the industry that we just have to share it.
I recently heard about GreenPrint software, a Windows and Mac software plug-in that solve a problem we’ve all had: that wasted page with just a URL, banner ad, legal disclaimer, or single word.
Here are a few of Green Print's great features
I don’t know how many times we’ve pitched those into the recycling bin. Sure that paper is getting reused, but when you consider how much time, energy, money, and resources went into the effort of making that sheet of paper, only to have a single line printed on it and recycled without ever being seen, you can see the problem.
Green Print software will remove unwanted pages, decide what to print, and even track the pages you don’t print and the amount of money you’ve saved.
While it’s not strictly in the printing industry, we like Green Print because it’s all about green printing and saving money and the earth. Good job, guys!
Heavy Duty Coil Machine Looking for a Needy Office
Tired of coil and binding systems that bunch up or get caught? Sick of wasting time having to feed in each document perfectly? If this sounds like you, the Akiles CoilMac ECI Coil Binding System could change your world (well, maybe not your whole world, but definitely the small percentage of it that revolves around document processing).
What Does it Do?
With a clean and accurate punch every time, the Akiles ECI coil binder minimizes tearing and bunching and can handle up to 17 sheets at once. Meanwhile, the side margin control features offer an evenly centered punch on all document sizes. And when you’re done, the disengagement pins make removing the document simple and frustration-free, no more wrenching a coil-binded document out of the binder.
The Akiles ECI system also features a foot pedal operated electric roller inserter. This leaves your hands free to insert and remove documents, making the whole coiling and binding process much faster. It’s amazing, but this simple little feature can drastically reduce your time and labor costs.
And How Much Does it Cost?
All three models of Akiles CoilMac ECI Coil Binding System sells at Lloyd’s of Indiana for the same low price of $639. Each unit purchase include a 1-year warranty and the option to purchase an extended warranty through Lloyd’s.
You can get more information on the Akiles CoilMac systems here.