EcoStrategies for Printed Communications An Information and Strategy Guide prepared by Partners in Design
Contents
Designing with the environment in mind . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Accepting short-term trade-offs for long-term benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Planning a project from cradle-to-grave . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Sharing information to educate others . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The paper waste crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Cost and printing quality of recycled papers . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The next hurdle: chlorine bleaching . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Alphabet soup: ECF, TCF, PCF and TEF . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Paper dyes . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Tree-free papers . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 True Colors? Ink on paper . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Oil content . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Seeing red: Toxic colors . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 True Colors? Copper and Barium in PMS Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Pigment substitutes . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Taking it all off: Deinking . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Burn it or bury it—the only choices? . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Waterless printing . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Direct imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 What to look for in a printer . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Incorporating EcoStrategies into the design process . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Designing with the environment in mind
When it comes to environmental concerns in communications, it is design which can help to establish the criteria. To begin, the most appropriate transmission media should be selected. Some information is short-lived or extremely changable and can be well suited for on-line distribution on the Web. If print is the best medium choice, then decisions primarily center around material selections and printing processes which impact on air and water quality and waste generation. This is where the complexity and the facts and fiction of the issues becomes confusing. It’s not enough anymore to just stick that little recycled symbol on a project and hope for the best. Whether you know a lot or a little about becoming more environmentally-sensitive when designing printed materials, this guide will give you an overview of the three main components that bring a printed graphic design project to fruition, and their impact on the environment. This overview does not attempt to be conclusive nor complete, but it can serve as a primer for beginning the education process of making better decisions with the environment in mind.
Accepting short-term trade-offs for long-term benefits
Over the last decade, there have been tremendous changes in the environmental laws that affect the commercial printing and publishing industry as concerns about air and water pollution and waste managment began to be addressed. As we work in our offices and play in our forests, mountains and beaches, we can no longer afford to ignore the fact that much of what we create consumes enormous quantities of resources and generates toxic by-products. It is time to become pro-active. As individuals, we can recycle our newspapers, mail, bottles and cans and purchase recycled products for our homes, thereby driving the market. Yet, both in our personal lives and professionally, we still must acknowledge trade-offs to support these fledgling markets—reflected in increased costs and a sometimes uneven availability and supply. A steady commitment to our objectives in spite of these factors is required. As professional print communicators specifying paper and printing, in the aggregate, our individual purchasing power can be increased many times over. Hand in hand with our commitment, informed purchasing choices as well as careful print planning can serve to send a clear message to paper mills and ink manufacturers that these issues will not go away.
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Planning a project from cradle-to-grave
Every time you choose a paper, an ink, a coating, or an adhesive, you are making not only a design and printing decision, but an environmental one as well. Environmental issues affecting air and water quality crop up at all stages of the design working process—long before the materials we use ever reach our hands, to well on past the time when what we design and print leaves our offices. But unlike a manufacturer who is liable for his landfilled waste, we are strangely distant from the consequences of our actions. Designers and print communicators are not required to be licensed. That means that it is assumed by government standards that we can do no public harm. We are a service profession. If that is so, then we believe that one of the most important services a designer can provide is to know the consequences of the materials they use—the paper that is specified, the ink that will be used to print it, how it will be printed, and what will happen to it when its useful life is over. There are no easy solutions, sometimes just better trade-offs. Mostly it’s a balancing act. The hard facts aren’t very creative, but the area is wide open for creative solutions. Understanding this means that for each design and printing decision you make, you constantly ask yourself “what are the consequences of this decision?” The “cradle-to-grave” principle means matching the expenditure of resources to the intended lifespan of the piece. If you’re designing a book, perhaps you choose virgin stock, but if your information will be outdated in a month, challenge yourself to find a solution that uses 100% recycled stock, or consider on-line distribution. This method of thinking is akin to the familiar environmental mantra “Reduce—Reuse—Recycle” in that it encourages not only thinking about the reuse of materials but also emphasizes source reduction—consideration at the outset about the initial expenditure of resources.
Sharing information to educate others
If you have tried at all to gather information on recycled paper, paper bleaching methods, ink toxicity and disposal or print production processes, you are certain to agree that trying to “do the right thing” entails a major commitment of time and energy in fact-checking and keeping information current. It’s hard to know when to stop as new processes and materials are being introduced constantly. In addition, the quality of the information available often does not lend itself to a clear decision-making process. The best way to beat this learning cur ve lies in information sharing and looking to reputable organizations for unbiased facts you can trust. Making environmental information more accessible and approachable means that it will become easier to incorporate new ideas into employee education programs, purchasing contracts and project specification objectives and ultimately into a company’s day-to-day mindset.
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The paper waste crisis Deceiphering pre-and post-consumer waste content Paper, paper, paper. How much, what types and where does it go? The United States is the Saudi Arabia of paper. Each year the city of Seattle alone generates over 400,00 tons of paper or 53% of the total 750,000 tons of waste generated in the city. Over 70% of that paper comes from businesses. Of the total tonnage, about 60% will be recycled. The rest of it makes it way to the landfill. Mailers. Brochures. Magazines. Booklets. Catalogs. Packaging. The list goes on. Nationally, paper makes up nearly 44% of America’s discarded consumer waste. It is the largest single waste contributor to our ever-shrinking landfills, yet as a nation we recover a mere 28%.1 Because of the enormity of its consumption, paper use offers a good place to start to reduce. To understand what goes into the recycling process, let’s use the city of Seattle as an example. Seattle divides its paper into 5 catagories—Newsprint, Corrugated/Kraft, Computer/Office, Mixed Paper and Other Paper. While the first three are fairly self-explanatory, the last two need some clarification. Mixed Paper is a catch-all grade of recyclables that includes groundwood (news, magazines, catalogs), kraft (bags and boxes), containerboard, ledger/CPO, and miscellaneous (junk mail, egg cartons, etc). Other Paper is paper that for any number of reasons (technical limits and lack of markets are two examples) cannot be recycled. This category includes waxed and poly-coated papers, and packaging papers contaminated with food, hazardous materials and other substances. Take note that this is the area which would be the most specific and different in your recycling area, so you may want to do a bit of local research. If you’re unsure of local sources, try the National Recycling Coalition at (703) 683-9026. Is there a market for this paper? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The market value of paper depends on its fiber length, strength, availablity and degree of contamination. Because of the abundance of pulp and paper mills here in the Pacific Northwest, newsprint, corrugated magazines and computer/office paper all have strong regional markets here. The relatively “clean” Computer/Office Paper which requires little or no deinking, brings the highest price at $195205 per ton. Mixed Paper comes in at $0/10 per ton.2 This disparity comes from the very limited domestic capacity we have available for recycling this mixed bag of paper waste and few cost effective ways of separating out the high grades.
1. Source: American Forest and Paper Institute 2. as of August 1994
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To continue to use Seattle as an example, virtually all Mixed Paper here is sent overseas to Pacific Rim markets. There, high grade materials like magazines are sorted out and many, surprisingly, find a market back in the US. Most paper manufacturers, responding to increasing demand, now offer quality recycled stocks. To avoid spending the tremendous amount of energy and resources necessary to export our paper waste (and in many cases, purchase it back as new products), businesses who produce printed materials need to play an increasingly important role in pulling their weight by creating a domestic market for this mixed waste. To effectively close the loop, depending on where you live, you can pretty easily purchase recycled paper products for your home and business; as a businessperson designing or specifying paper for even just one project, you have, in the aggregate, increased your purchasing power many times over. But be war y of claims that a recycled paper “meets EPA or federal requirements.” Guidelines issued by the EPA in 1988 state that writing and printing papers procurred through federal purchases—just 2% of the paper purchased nationwide—must contain only a minimum of 50% waste paper. The other 50% may be virgin fiber. And more specifically, the waste paper content can include any of the following: mill waste: clean, unprinted paper or board, such as converting cutting, envelope clippings and reject or obsolete paper. preconsumer waste: materials that have been printed, coated or processed, but have not been used in their finished form, such as printed scrap and trimmings from publishers and printers, and second cut cotton linters. Preconsumer waste must usually be cleaned, bleached and/or deinked prior to recycling. postconsumer waste: materials that have passed through consumer use and have been recovered from the waste stream through recycling, such as checks, mailings and office waste. Postconsumer waste must also be processed before recycling, but what is important to remember here is that postconsumer waste is paper that will be burned or buried if not recycled. Unfortunately, many new “recycled” sheets meet this 50% requirement with only mill waste. When mill waste makes up all the recycled content in a paper, there is no real gain in recycling because almost all of these materials have been, for economic reasons, traditionally thrown back into the papermaking process anyway. So what becomes important in the specification of recycled paper is the quantity of postconsumer content. To get you started, some commercial mills marketing papers with high postconsumer waste content are Cross Pointe Papers, Mohawk Paper, Simpson Paper, Mohawk Paper, P.H. Glatfelter, Domtar Paper, Fox River Paper, Byron Weston, Hopper Paper and Conservatree.
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Cost and printing quality of recycled papers Recycled papers are still generally 10–20% higher in price than virgin pulp because of the changing availability of recyclable waste paper (mills that feed their own deinking systems are at a definite advantage here) and tax subsidies favoring the virgin pulp industry. A number of environmental groups are lobbying against these subsidies. The quality gap between recycled and virgin stocks has been closing since the late 70s. The fibers in recycled papers are shorter, making it thicker and more opaque—good for diecutting and embossing. Grades are good all across the board in cover and card stock, and text and writing papers. Most complaints come from the use of coated recycled papers. For a definitive guide to printing on recycled papers, see Recycled Papers: The Essential Guide, by Claudia Thompson, published by MIT Press ISBN 0-262-70046-8 (pbk.) Informed purchasing choices as well as careful print planning to ensure that paper will have a second (or third, or fourth) life is essential, if we are to make a dent in the paper mountain. In addition, waste reduction strategies that you can implement in your own offices start with two-sided copying, plain paper faxes, current mailing lists and electronic mail.
The next hurdle: chlorine bleaching
Lay a grocery bag down next to a sheet of printing or writing paper with a brightness level of 90. One is rough, stiff and brown; close in appearance to the pulped wood chips from which it was made. The other is soft, pliable and bright white; most probably the result of a multi-staged bleaching process containing chlorine compounds. The steps required to go from grocery bag brown to brightest white are perhaps the single most damaging process in the production of pulp and paper. While the increased use of recycled paper with postconsumer content has begun to funnel some of the mountains of paper waste we generate into reuseable products, the continuing reliance of North American pulp mills on chlorine bleaching systems presents the communications, packaging and design communities with their next challenge. Do we need to give up white paper or can the industry provide workable alternatives to chlorine-compound bleaching? Bleaching agents are added to pulping operations in stages—usually according to each mill’s own specific recipe. Well into the 80s, chlorine gas was the bleaching agent of choice for most mills for obvious reasons—it did a great job of whitening the pulp, enabling papermakers to achieve higher and higher brightness levels. Most market pulp today is bleached to a degree of brightness that was just not possible 20 years ago.
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In fact, the classification of paper into its common categories, ie “Premium”, “No. 1”, “No. 2” etc. is done primarily by evaluating brightness and opacity. This labeling system which equates value with brightness has undoubtedly contributed to the increased specification of papers with the highest brightness levels. In actuality, since brightness is based on light reflectivity measured in a controlled setting, once a sheet exceeds a level of 80, it is not likely to be perceived by most people to be noticeably brighter in daylight or typical reading conditions. 3 The problem with chlorine begins when it combines with organic material [wood fiber] under extremely high temperatures—as it does in paper mills and in the carburetor of your car—to produce a whole range of organochlorines-synthetic compounds almost unknown in natural systems. Dioxin is probably the most well known organochlorine as well as one of the most toxic. Remember Agent Orange, DDT and PCB? They all contain dioxin, a known carcinogen, linked to a whole range of reproductive disorders, maligancies and birth defects in fish and animals, and increasingly thought to play a role in suppressing immune systems. 4 As concern over the production of organochlorines grew, mills moved from using chlorine gas to a variety of chlorinated compounds such as chlorine dioxide and sodium hypochlorite. While these minimize dioxin formation by almost 80%, they are still far from benign. Their use produces a whole variety of unknown—and often unnamed—organochlorines measured collectively in AOX (adsorbable organic halogen) levels. Part of the onus of organochlorines is their tendency to bioaccumulate. This means that by the time we eat the large fish, that ate the smaller fish, that ate the tiny fish, that ate the snail, chlorinated compound levels can have reached concentrations of hundreds of thousands of times greater than when they were measured in the sediments where the unsuspecting snail was feeding.
Alphabet soup: ECF, TCF, PCF and TEF
Pulp mills use and discharge millions of gallons of water each day, diluting dioxin to often non-measurable levels. But chlorinated compounds are synergistic, meaning that they create more damage together than they do separately. Thus, it is misleading to judge the health of our waters by a non-measurable level of dioxin in one mill’s wastewater. For example, bleached kraft mill effluent is responsible for about 40% of the dioxin contamination of the Columbia River here
3. Paper Buyers’ Index System, Phoenixville, PA 4. EPA Health Effects Laboratory, Triangle Park, NC
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in the Northwest, to the detriment of eagles, otters and other river-dependent animals, because there are 10 or more mills located on the Columbia, each one probably discharging “non-measurable” levels of dioxin.5
Consumers in Sweden, West Germany and Austria are leading the demand for Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) paper—a market that European mills are scrambling to satisfy. To compete in these foreign markets, and pass import restrictions, American mills need to meet these standards. In 1993, elemental chlorine consumption by US paper mills fell by 50%, largely due to this industry-wide shift to meet European standards. The route most American mills have taken, however, is retooling their plants to solve the dioxin problem with chlorine dioxide substitution, known as Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF). However, TCF proponents claim that eliminating chlorine altogether is the only way to put an end to the toxic by-products. The EPA’s recent Cluster Rule may make things even more complicated. This legislation proposes to limit effluents from America’s paper mills, and is the first-ever attempt to address air and water emissions simultaneously. A mill’s effluent limits would be based on their combined AOX discharge. This could present a real challenge for mills still bleaching with any chlorinebased chemicals. Since the ultimate goal for both ECF and TCF technology is a closed loop system where everything is recycled, known as Totally Effluent Free (TEF) technology, a continued dependance on chlorine-based chemicals will hinder and lengthen this process considerably. There are alternatives to chlorine compound bleaching. Oxygen, ozone and hydrogen peroxide all bleach by oxygenation not chlorination. These methods can easily produce a sheet with a brightness level of 80. There are acknowledged ways to reduce the need for chlorine bleaching, such as better washing of the pulp and longer “cooking” of the fibers to remove as much lignin as possible at an early stage; and reducing or eliminating defoamers that contain dioxin precursors. 6 These processes are routinely used for rebleaching deinked fiber, and are often labeled as Processed Chlorine Free (PCF), which means essentially that no new chlorine has been added to the bleaching and pulping of the virgin fiber but there may be dioxins present in the recycled content of the pulp. However, since most virgin pulp operations in the United States have invested in retooling their plants for ECF bleaching, switching now to ECF would be at an additional expense since the two technologies are not substitutable.7 Perhaps the most important question we can ask ourselves is how white is white enough? Once you know the consequences, that bright white sheet starts to look a lot less attractive.
5, 6. Washington State Department of Ecology 7.
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Shelley Stewart, Greenpeace USA
EcoStrategies for Printed Communications : Partners in Design
Paper dyes
In the complex area of paper dyes, if designers are concerned about choosing a product with a small ecological footprint, it is easier to assess the environmental record of a company than to assess a particular product. Although MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) are prepared for paper dyes, the formulations are fairly proprietary, since a paper’s success in the marketplace relies heavily on its texture, printability and, of course, its color. In 1958, the government developed what was called the Prior Sanctions List, essentially, lists of dyes that were deemed safe because they had caused no prior harm. Most of these dyes are not considered safe by today’s standards and ver y few are still used by the paper industry. In addition, heavy-metal content in paper dyes has been reduced by about 60% since the 70s (although with increased printing volume, the environmental dose may be the same). Many mills have developed new dyes that are water-insoluble. These dyes basically won’t come out of the paper, either onto anything the paper comes into contact with or when the paper is deinked. Soluable dyes are, however, still used in some paper lines, particularly for bright, fluorescent sheets, and this could have implications if suspect pigment components enter the waste stream. The dye industry is not regulated, and the FDA is only concerned with paper dyes that have direct food contact. However, a mill can decide to set its own “standard of care.” A good way to assess a company’s approach is to contact paper manufacturers directly and inquire what guidelines their paper designers consult and what materials they avoid when developing a new dye color. An East Coast mill gave us the following scenario that their paper designers need to follow through to develop a new dye color. First, they consider worker safety. If the material has acute or chronic health effects on workers, they won’t use it. Second, they consult the Clean Water Act. If the material contains primary pollutants that will cause problems when discharged into rivers or when deinked, they won’t use it. And lastly, they consult RECRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) which governs the disposal of materials. If the material comes in a 55-gallon drum which will have to be disposed of as hazardous waste, they won’t use it.
Tree-free papers
A totally different—and exciting—option to virgin or recycled wood papers is the small but growing arena of tree-free fibers. Since 1994, these alternative papers have taken off and they seem to have the potential to strongly impact the paper industr y.
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Tree-free papers are essentially virgin papers, made usually from a cash crop like kenaf, hemp or straw. Organically-grown and naturally colored cotton is also showing up as an alternative as are recycled papers made from materials as diverse as grass and algae collected from the Venice Lagoon. These papers provide a true alternative to wood pulp papers in a variety of ways—they are cultivated without pesticides, provide employment in traditionally economically depressed areas, require less energy and no chlorine to process, and, unlike trees, grow quickly and can be harvested yearly for paper manufacture. Support for these emerging industries is essential for their success, and of course, the usual caveats apply—a slight premium in cost and flexibility on supply must be tolerated to help develop a strong market presence.
True colors? ink on paper Are all inks created equal? There is a dizzying array of printing inks, each formulated for a specific printing process and specific substrate. What they all have in common are their three primary components: pigment, vehicle, and binder. The pigment, a powder, carries the color; the vehicle is a liquid that allows the pigment to be applied, and the binder attaches the pigment to the substrate being printed.
Oil content The use of vegetable oils as vehicles in printing inks is not new. They were quite common before the use of coated papers and high-speed, heatset web printing became more widespread in the 70s—a process that required fast-drying inks with solvents that evaporated quickly. By 1992, according to NAPIM, the National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers, almost 50% of all commercial inks were reported to be petroleum-based. Now, vegetable-oil inks are back and the reasons for specifying them—and the benefits—are often unclear. The primary advantage of specifying a vegetable-oil lithographic ink is that it has a significantly lower volatile organic compound (VOC) level. VOCs are primary air and water pollutants, contibuting to the formation of ozone, as well as being a hazard to pressroom workers. If you choose a vegetable-oil sheetfed inks, the VOC level can be as low as 0–1%, compared with upwards of 25–40% for their petroleum-oil equivalents. (The VOC rating of an ink using EPA Method 24 is roughly equivalent to the percentage of petroleum-oil solvent in its formulation.) Additional benefits come from using oils derived from a renewable resource, which is safer in its extraction, transportation and refining processes.
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In Canada, canola oil (literally, “Canadian oil”) has become the replacement solvent of choice, since Canola is widely grown in Canada. Here in America, because of extensive marketing by the American Soybean Association, soybean oil has succeeded in dominating the market. In fact, any of a variety of vegetable or fruit oils—from corn to walnut to coconut—can replace the petroleum content of inks and individual presses have their favorites. Currently, flexographic and gravure inks cannot be formulated with any of the known vegetable oils. 8 For heatset web inks, vegetable oil content will be lower than in sheetfed, since in heatset, ink dries when oil evaporates from the paper. For coldset web (news), which dries by absorption, the American Newspaper Publishers Association has been using soy-based inks since 1986, and some formulations are now completely vegetable-based in their oil content. In press performance, vegetable inks offer many benefits. Ink-hold out is better, resulting in less dot gain. Since the oil is lighter in color, ink colors are brighter and cleaner. Trapping and ghosting are less of a problem. But because vegetable-oil inks are high in solids which draw water to them, they can have longer setting times and less rub resistance.
Seeing red: toxic colors Heavy metals Besides its oil content, an ink is made up of close to 50% pigment, traditionally derived from petroleum byproducts, metals and clays. Over the years, most of the toxic heavy metals which are known carcinogens such as lead, cadmium and chromium have been replaced in lithographic inks, mainly with carbon-based substitutes. Lead chromates, however, are still found in flexographic inks used for packaging. And metallics and fluorescents, which are 70–80% pigment, always carry heavy metals. But litho inks do still contain barium, copper, zinc, aluminum, manganese and cobalt; and certain colors have the possibility of exceeding current EPA threshold levels for these elements in their most common formulations.9 (Note: regardless of whether an ink is vegetable or petroleumbased, its pigment content will be the same.) Additionally, besides being used to create pigments, barium salts, barium sulfates, cobalt and manganese all find their way into printing inks as extenders and to help speed the drying process. When safely set on paper and packaging, inks that contain heavy metals are not environmentally
8. NAPIM 9. EPA, Office of Toxic Substances
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harmful. The problems begin once the paper and packaging material is discarded. When these elements break down under acidic conditions (as they can in landfills) or when they mix with solvents (as they do during washup on press) they can become a cause for concern when deinked or buried in landfills. When printed solid waste is buried in landfills, the heavy metals can potentially leach into groundwater and eventually into tap water. To compound the problem, incineration (the favored method of treating solid waste in many areas) concentrates the heavy metals in ash residue and what’s not captured by adequate convertors can result in air-to-water pollution. It is infinitely better to encourage research and development among ink manufacturers for nontoxic pigment substitutes than to hope for ideal containment conditions in landfills and incineration plants. The current standard regulatory definition of heavy metals includes what is know as the CAMALS list, specifically cadmium, arsenic, mercury, antimony, lead and selenium. If restrictions on the use of heavy metals in inks are limited to these six metals, the inks affected would be only those used to print on flexible packaging, especially on transparent films. Fluorescent greens, oranges and extremely opaque bright yellows would also have to be reformulated. cadmium: used almost exclusively to print bright and deep reds on special acid-resistant labels. Known carcinogen and neurotoxin, no longer used in pigment formulation arsenic: known carcinogen and neurotoxin mercury: neurotoxin in humans, and acutely toxic to marine life antimony: linkled to lung congestion, infertility and eye and skin irritation in humans lead: Approximately 60% of the weight used in chrome yellow and molybdate orange pigments is derived from lead. Use is restricted to printing on special materials such as mylar and acetates. Known carcinogen and neurotoxin. NAPIM suggests inorganic pigment substitution when exact color matches, opacity and lightfastness are not requirements selenium: linked to lung irritation, breating problems and liver damage Barium and copper, although not classified as true heavy metals, can, in certain forms, produce effects like heavy metals. Barium is federally regulated as a toxic constituent (TC) and copper and zinc are acutely toxic to aquatic life in certain forms. Zinc is a necessary component of metallic golds, bronzes, and tinted shades; aluminum is present in silver and gold and manganese and cobalt are routinely used as drying agents. If restrictions are extended to these heavy metals, the inks affected would include traditional litho inks used in their most common formulations, ie the four process colors. The following are considered to have the greatest health risks and may face
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future restrictions, depending on the success of the ink lobbying industry: barium: widely used in formulation of printing ink red organic pigments, including the Lithols, the Permanent Red 2Bs and the Red Lake Cs, among others. Known irritant to the lungs; chronic exposure damages the heart and liver. chromium: used with lead to make the pigmant lead chromate. Known carcinogen in certain forms. copper: essential component for formulation of phthalocyanine blue and green pigments. There is no available replacement for this important class of pigments that is used in most blue and green inks. Standard blue pigment for use in Process Blue. Acutely and chronically toxic to marine life. zinc: essential component of all standard whites and tinted shades, and in metallics. Acutely toxic to marine life.
True Colors? Copper and Barium in PMS Colors While many heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury, and lead have been eliminated from lithographic printing inks, current ink technology still relies heavily on pigment bases whose environmental impact is potentially harmful. Pigments of concern that are now in wide commercial use are Barium-based Red Lake C; Copper-phthalocyanine blue; and Copper-phthalocyanine green. These formulations are considered to be in compliance with current federal environmental regulations which test for leachability only. However, federal limits do not take into account the greater problem of bioavailablity of these substances once the inks are incinerated as solid waste, disposed of as hazardous printers’ waste, or handled as sludge from deinking plants. In particular, the colors shown on the chart on page 15 have the possibility of exceeding recommended threshold levels of copper and/or barium in their most common formulations. The percentages shown indicate concentrations in parts per million. This chart can be a guide to avoiding specification of these colors or for lobbying ink manufacturers for more research and designof non-toxic pigment bases which would greatly reduce the toxicity of waste ink and deinking sludge. Attach actual PMS chips to this chart for your use as a reference.
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PMS #
C
Copper
B
Barium
PMS #
PMS #
PMS #
2% B
4% B
5% B
7% B
12% B
14% B
18% B
21% B
123
137
1375
151
1585
165
1655
172
Warm Red
1788
185
192
213
259
2735
286
28% B
25% B
21% B
18% B
7% B
4% C
7% C
12% C
12%B C 2%
13% C
15% C
15% C
16% C
16% C
13% C
17% C
293
300
3005
Process Blue
313
3135
320
327
3272
3275
3278
Green
340
3405
347
354
17% C
12% C
18% C
11% C
17% C
9% C
15% C
5% C
4% BC 2%
5% C
1% C
5% C
11% C–11% B 13% C–7% B 4% C
361
368
389
419
438
445
450
457
464
4625
471
492
499
4975
506
513
2% C
9% B
11% B
3% C–23% B
7% C–18% B
2% C–17% B 23% B
2% BC 2%
7% C
13% B
5% C
3% C
3% C
11% C
12% C–1% B
5115
520
5185
527
5255
534
5463
5535
562
569
5747
All colors on All colors on Page 73 C Page 74 C
16% C–3% B
17% C–2% B
3% C
Fluorescents
Metallics
2% B
5% C
12% C
Pigment substitutes
A very select niche in the ink manufacturing business is food contact inks—the only inks available that are totally free of heavy metals and toxic substances. The colorants use the purest forms of the pigment available. Every lot produced needs to be tested and certified before shipment. These alternative nontoxic substitutes are generally synthetic inorganic compounds or organic dyes, lakes or pigments. Many are derivitives of coal tar dyes. These inks’ main uses are in the food, drug, cosmetic and medical implant industries, although formulations are available for sheetfed, heatset web, flexographic and silkscreen. Why aren’t they more widely used? The inks are 2 to 3 times the price per pound of standard lithographic inks, but that’s not the whole reason. In reality, the cost of ink alone accounts for less than 2% of an average print project’s budget. The long-term environmental impact of these pigments is much debated, and the issue quickly becomes clouded by definitions and numerous regulatory and economic considerations. The real reason is that you have to give up something to get something. Color in its purest form does not lend itself well to lightfastness, color strength and gloss. According to NAPIM, the heavy metal content in printing inks has been reduced as much as is possible without impacting pigment quality. The clear cyan blues and clean warm reds of commercial printing inks are impossible to produce, as we know them, without copper and barium. The only alternative at this point is the development of organic pigment substitutes. While there is some work being done to develop an offset ink color palette of nontoxic pigments, which colors to use and how much of them will remain an ethical judgement call for a long time to come. But the expected changes will no doubt include less lightfastness and opacity, increased cost (at least at the outset) and more extensive testing and production time for both manufacturers and printers. It is important that both NAPIM and ink manufacturers know that this research and development is supported and that a developing market will be in place for replacement products. Do keep in mind that specification of ToySafe inks (alternative non-heavy metal based formulations used on toys) may be an option for some projects. The cost is comparable except for some of the warmest reds and Process Blue, but ToySafe inks also present compromises in gloss, color, and lightfastness. Ultimately, until ink companies can develop workable alternative pigments, nonspecification of the colors containing high concentrations of toxic substances may be the best way that designers can keep these questionable ingredients out of the waste stream.
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Taking it all off: deinking
You design an annual report on raspberr y-colored cover stock and creme text and print 1 million copies. People look at this annual report, rip out or copy the financial pages, and either recycle it or throw it away. If they live in the Seattle metro area and they throw it away, it will end up in Oregon in a landfill. If they recycle it, depending on whether it’s collected from their office or their home, there’s a good chance that it will end up at a deinking plant. Deinking is the process of removing printed inks and finishing materials from the reusable fiber of paper. In the last 20 years or so, the increased and varied number of new printing techniques have complicated this process. Photocopying and laser printing, flexo-printing inks, UV and heatset coatings, hot-melt glues, pressure-sensitive adhesives and FAX paper all increase the difficulty of deinking. Each deinking plant must determine, usually in strict proportions, which kinds of printed paper waste and how much of each kind they can use in their general fiber mix. Deinking plants are complex entities and mill specific in their design, since each wastepaper grade has unique physical and chemical properties and contaminants. A mill planning to use manila file stock will have to consider that it may contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). A mill planning to use heavily coated grades will need the capability to handle and dispose of larger quantities of sludge. It’s also fairly common for more unusual “contaminants” to show up in wastepaper bales—everything from Styrofoam and plastics to engine parts. These items can cause considerable damage to deinking equipment and if not sufficently removed, can hinder the future papermaking process as well. There are just 19 deinking plants in the U.S. Of these only 4 sell deinked pulp on the open market at about $600–800/ton (compared with $400–600/ton for virgin pulp). The other 15 are integrated mills whose facilities feed their own systems. Only three commercial paper mills now have deinking plants of their own: Cross Pointe Paper, Simpson Paper and P.H. Glatfelter. A new deinking plant can cost close to $65 million to open. Obviously, there must be a clear market for a mill to undertake such an enormous expenditure. Economically taking the lead may not necessarily be in any one company’s interest but when it becomes established as a baseline need, it collectively becomes in everyone’s best interests to participate. With Americans generating roughly 600 pounds of paper waste per person each year, and landfills filling up, deinking plants have the potential to divert much of this waste and process it again for a second use. The deinking process has been used in papermaking for a long time. But developments in deinking technology are increasing rapidly. A new deinking plant that opened in 1993 in Oregon
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has in effect created a market for coated printers’ waste with heavy coverage (more than 50% ink on the trimmings) and FAX and laser paper by developing a proprietar y process for removing these contaminants. Some 300 tons of usable fiber are being recovered from these paper wastes that would have otherwise gone to a landfill. Cross Pointe Papers, a midwestern mill that has been deinking since 1915, likens the basic process to putting clothes in a washing machine, adding soap and water, and turning on the agitator. After a while, the water drains out. If your machine is working properly, the dirt goes out with the water.
Burn it or bury it—the only choices? It is the final part of the above analogy that has kept deinking plants from being fully embraced by consumers as environmentally-beneficial. Many wonder if deinking printed paper creates many of the same environmental problems as virgin papermaking. In fact, deinking plants require far less energy in their operation than do pulp mills, fewer chemicals and no toxic solvents. Virtually all contamination in deinking sludge is a result of the pigments, dyes and chlorinated compounds that were added to the paper during its original bleaching and printing processes. If any whitening of the new fiber is necessary, deinking plants use either oxygen or hydrogen peroxide—compounds that bleach by oxygenation, not chlorination. The European floatation method of deinking is fast becoming more widely used in America as an adjunct to the inital washing stage. Floatation works by routing the pulped paper waste through aerated tanks. The ink particles attach themselves onto air bubbles in the tanks and are separated out. Most sludge produced by deinking plants ends up in privately owned landfills. It’s usually a mix of fiber, ink, and clay and titanium dioxide and is generally considered nonhazardous, although this can vary from state to state and each mill must verify their operation. Sludge can be handled by incineration and ash disposal or landfilling (procedures which require that the sludge be tested for toxicity, ignitability, reactivity and corrosivity and for leachable forms of heavy metals). If it is determined to be nonhazardous, the sludge can be directed to beneficial reuses such as concrete, road filler and building materials. Some sludge is currently applied to farmlands or treefarms as a soil supplement, but the operation is hindered by the uncertainty of future liability due to potential accumulation of PCBs or heavy metals. Since no current disposal method is ideal, keeping toxins out of the paper that will eventually be deinked seems like the best way to ensure that a non-toxic sludge will result. Perhaps the most environmentally-sound use of waste paper is recycled paper made from nondeinked postconsumer waste. No rebleaching is used and the pulp recovered is taken directly out of the waste stream.
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Printing
The printing industry is a major source of acidic and alkaline waste from the chemicals used in making film and washing press equipment. These alcohol fountain solutions, and cleaning solvents used by printers are an even more troublesome source of VOC emissions in pressrooms than ink. The most common solvent—isoproply alcohol (IPA)—is 100% VOC and is extremely volatile. More than half of all VOCs emitted from the sheetfed pressroom are from IPA.10 In Southern California, as well as in New Jersey, New York and Illinois, stringent legislation currently limits daily VOC emission levels from printers to a per day maximum. Clearly, this is a serious pollutant. To simply keep their presses running, this has forced one-third of the American offset print industry to switch to alcohol-free or alcohol substitute printing. 11 Many printers here in the Northwest and in Canada are voluntarily making the decision to go alcohol-free before regulations are imposed. It is a long and expensive process, requiring a shop to fit presses with new blankets and rollers, test substitute products and perhaps most importantly, gain the support of press operators, who are used to relying on alcohol to solve many ink-and-water balance problems. (IPA is a very forgiving additive which overcomes numerous dampening system problems.) Running alcohol-free thus requires increased operator skill and customer patience. The results of making the transition, however, can be a significantly more healthy worker environment and upwards of 90% less VOC emissions. Alcohol-laced fountain solutions are kept away from the wastewater stream and less ink is required for each job, because color reproduces more strongly under alcohol-free running.
Waterless printing Waterless printing is another more environmentally benign option becoming more widely available. Also known as “dry” printing, waterless printing eliminates all fountain solutions, substituting instead hollow rollers containing a cooling solution that controls color evenness. Waterless plates (produced with traditional film separation methods) also eliminate fountain solutions, and allow resolutions of 300–to 600–line printing. When combined with recycled papers, waterless presses also perform better providing less linting and stretching, truer inks colors, better traps and less make-ready.
10, 11. Graphic Arts Technical Foundation
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Direct imaging With the imminent onset of direct imaging—digital images taken direct from a prepress system onto a dry printing plate—the next wave of printing technology change is about to begin, with all filmaking and chemicals, including fountain solutions eliminated. Line screen resolution maximum is expected to be about 150—perfectly adequate for most projects.
What to look for in a printer
When you are just beginning the process of trying to print in a more environmentally-sensitive way, your best ally or worst enemy will be your printer. Finding like-minded companies who are receptive to change and to your objectives—ie. a belief that this is an important path to pursue— is essential to success. You will have better response and support if you have developed a longterm relationship already, and you are a steady client. Alternatively, seek out new vendors who have made this an important aspect of their business, who market their environmentally-sensitive practices seriously and who you feel will become a valuable resource in the future. Whatever path you pursue, be sure to pay a visit to your printer on-site. If the shop seems to have good housekeeping practices and the work environment is healthy, there’s a good chance that they’ve already taken steps in the right direction and will be receptive to your requests.
Incorporating EcoStrategies into the design process
Here are some guidelines and considerations that recap some of the ideas presented in this paper. Trying to integrate even some of these into your working process will be the beginning of a real commitment to more environmentally-sensitive design practices. Avoid specification of PMS colors that exceed EPA threshold levels of copper and/or barium. Totally avoid all metallic inks and fluorescent inks, especially the greens, oranges and opaque yellows. Use the chart in this guide as an easy reference. Lobby ink manufacturers for more research and design of nontoxic organic pigments. Specify vegetable oil inks with low VOC ratings. Evaluate comparable inks since the range of VOC percentages will vary based on the formulation for specific printing processes.
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Open up a dialogue with your printer about good housekeeping practices and alcohol substitutes in the pressroom. Design and specify materials with the “cradle-to-grave� principle in mind, matching the expenditure of resources to the intended lifespan of the piece. Select appropriate media for distribution of messages. Consider on-line communication for mass distribution of changeable, timely information. Build additional time into your schedules for research, testing and production and come to an understanding that this is an acceptable short-term trade-off if you are committed to environmentally-sensitive design. Acknowledge higher short term costs in alternative products while more markets develop. Better success and support will always come from developing long-term relationships with your vendors. Printers are more willing to test new materials with you if they know you are a steady client. Be clear in your specification requests, to avoid the substitution of lesser-quality products. Until you become familiar with particular products, ask for specific information on VOC ratings, the bleaching method used and the breakdown of the waste content in recycled papers. Include production notes on projects whenever possible. Develop your own standard of offering the information you deem essential to your audience. Stating the processes used or avoided can sometimes be the clearest solution. Try to build in secondary uses for your final product. Can it be designed to be reusable? Rather than force-fitting alternative materials to a particular design aesthetic, let them lead you to new ways of considering the design approach. Surface coatings and laminations should be rethought when done for aesthetic reasons rather than for protection, particularly if the piece will have a short life. Dark shades of paper dyes and heavy coverage of inks increase the difficulty and the amount of chemicals necessary in the deinking process. Consider the choices carefully if the printed piece is likely to be recycled.
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Consider using a lighter weight of paper when choosing a recycled sheet since the naturally shorter fibers are somewhat more opaque. Question paper merchants about the bleaching methods used on both virgin and recycled sheets and indicate your preference for TCF bleaching methods. Consider that the whitest and brightest paper is not always the best solution for every application. Specify recycled papers with high (upwards of 50%-80%) postconsumer waste, and deinked fiber that has not been rebleached with chlorinated compounds. Match the expenditure of resources to the intended life span of the printed piece. Rethink the idea that recycled fiber in text and writing papers lowers quality. Think of the Acoma potter who mixes broken clay shards into every new batch of fresh clay. Think of the quilter who uses scraps to create a new whole. Beware of Greenwash. Double check promotional information, find suppliers you can trust and support professional organizations to provide unbiased information. Always think proportions.
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Glossary
AOX (adsorbable organic halogen) AOX is a broad term that combines all types of chlorinated organics into one number measuring the total amount of chlorine bound to organic compounds. It does not distinguish between compounds that bioaccumulate and those that do not. alkaline papers alkaline papers typically use calcium carbonate (CaCO3) instead of clay for filler. The American National Standards Organization (ANSI) requires a permanent paper to have a pH of 7.5 or greater, and a minimum 2% alkaline reserve as a buffering agent. (pH measures the degree of acidity and alkalinity; pH 7 is neutral, above 7 is alkaline, below 7 is acidic). Some “acid-free� papers indicate only that an alkaline sizing process was used, but not that a minimum pH of 7.5 has been achieved or that a 2% alkaline reserve is present. Papers meeting the full ANSI standards can display the Alkaline Permanent Paper Symbol. CAMALS list the current standard regulatory list of heavy metals which includes cadmium, arsenic, mercury, antimony, lead and selenium. direct dyes dyes used to color paper and textiles, chemically called azo dyes. Direct dyes can be anionic or cationic. Anionic dyes contain compounds which are known human health and environmental hazards. chlorine free or dioxin free these non-specific terms do not offer enough information to indicate that the paper has been bleached without the use of any chlorinated compounds. chlorinated compounds also called organochlorines, these synthetic chemicals are formed in the chlorine bleaching of brown tree pulp to white, as well as in incineration of solid waste and combustion engines and can cause considerable damage when they enter an ecosystem. deinking the process of removing printed inks and finishing materials from the reusable fiber of paper. dioxins generic term for suspected carcinogens, extremely toxic to both humans and animals and very
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resistant to bioloigical breakdown. Many different chlorinated compounds are commonly called “dioxins”. EPA Cluster Rule US Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulation to limit water effluent and air emissions from pulp and paper companies. These limits are still under consideration, but if approved, could influence the future of pulp bleaching technologies. EPA Method 24 US Environmental Protection Agency’s measurement method of measuring the amount of VOC emissions given off by a compound, such as a printing ink, when it is burned under rapid intense heat. There is debate as to whether this method gives a true reading, since inks are rarely subjected to such intense heat, even when incinerated.
EcoLogo The official mark of Environment Canada awarded to products that meet the Canadian government’s Environmental Choice criteria. EcoLogo certification requires that “printing papers must contain over 50% by weight of recycled paper of which a minimum of 10% of the total weight must be postconsumer fiber.” The distinction of “by weight” is significant, since, if not specified, the recycled content is probably based on fiber content and not weight. Since all papers contain fillers, the actual amount of recycled content in such instances will necessarily be less. elemental chlorine free (ECF) refers to pulp that has been bleached without the use of chlorine gas. ECF pulp may, however, have been bleached with hypochlorite or chlorine compounds. heavy metals more extensive list of metals with a specific gravity greater than 5.0 such as copper, lead, cadmium, chromium-6 and zinc. Although not all are regulated, most heavy metals pose health risks to humans and animals. MSDS (material safety data sheet) Product identification sheet which is prepared by ink, dye and solvent manufacturers and which must detail any hazardous ingredients and environmental precautions. MSDSs are available for all of these products, if not always easy to understand.
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mill waste clean, unprinted paper or board, such as converting cutting, envelope clippings and reject and obsolete paper collected from binderies, envelope manufacturers, and other paper converters. This paper waste, also called “mill broke,� is considered preconsumer waste by the EPA but not by Environment Canada. nondeinked postconsumer waste recycled waste paper that has not gone through any rebleaching. oxygen bleaching or oxygenation a totally chlorine-free process used to seperate lignin from wood fibers, and to bleach and whiten pulp. ozone bleaching a totally chlorine-free process used to separate lignin from wood fibers and to bleach and whiten pulp. pigment one of the three components of all commercial printing inks, the other two being vehicle and binder. Derived mainly from metals or clays (inorganic pigments) or petroleum byproducts (organic pigments). Some ink pigments, in both petroleum and vegetable based formulas, still contain heavy or toxic metals. processed chlorine free (PCF) qualified term which indicates that no new chlorine has been introduced into the bleaching and pulping opeartions. Dioxins, however, may be present in recycled paper pulp, or in the fibers of trees which have been contaminated through toxic air emissions. postconsumer waste papers and cardboards which have already been used and discarded by the consumer, such as materials that have passed through consumer use and and have been, for the most part, recovered from the waste stream through recycling, such as office papers, cardboard, checks, mailings and office waste. Postconsumer waste is paper that will be burned or buried if not recycled. preconsumer waste materials that have been printed, coated or processed, but have not been used in their finished form, such as printed scrap and trimmings from publishers and printers, and second cut cotton linters.
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recyclable logo recommended symbol developed by the American Paper Institute in 1970 to signify products that are potentially recyclable. No exact standards governing use.
recycled logo recommended symbol developed by the American Paper Institute in 1970 to signify products that are made withsome portion of recycled material. No exact standards governing use. soy-based or vegetable-based inks vegetable or soy oil percentages are given for only the vegetable oil content of the ink. Thus, a “100% soy-based ink� does not necessarily mean that 100% of the total oil content of the ink is soy; but only that 100% of the vegetable oil in the ink is soy. The remainder of the oil content is probably petroleum. A better evaluation of the percentage of petroleum oil replacement in any given ink is by its VOC rating.
SoySeal The American Soybean Association SoySeal logo can be used for the following soy ink formulations: a news ink with at least 55% soybean oil; a sheetfed ink with at least 20%, and a heatset web with at least 18%. These are minimum replacement standards, and many soy or vegetable oil formulations now being marketed carry much higher replacement amounts. totally chlorine free (TCF) refers to pulp and paper that has been bleached without the use of chlorinated compounds, using instead oxygen, hydrogen peroxide or ozone. totally effluent free (TEF) a closed loop system in a manufacturing industry, where everything is recycled.
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ToySafe Voluntary labeling standard established by the Consumer Product Safety Commission for the inks used on toys and other products used by children. A ToySafe ink does not necessarily pass FDA requirements for food contact inks. tree-free papers papers made from non-wood pulp and fiber, such as hemp, grass or straw unbleached paper the only unbleached paper is brown kraft. Newsprint and all printing papers are bleached to some extent. VOC (volatile organic compound) emissions that are the result of the evaporation of petroleum oils and solvents and which contribute to air pollution through the formation of ozone. VOCs are irritants and depressants to the central nervous system. Some are toxic, and a few, such as benzene and toluene, are carcinogenic. Printers, dry cleaners and metal fabricators are VOC producers.
EcoStrategies for Printed Communications: An Information and Strategy Guide Š Partners in Design 1996
Partners in Design 600 First Avenue, Office 409 Seattle, WA 98104 206/223-0681 phone 206/223-0897 fax email: pidseattle@aol.com For more resources and a continuing discussion of these and other issues, visit our Web site at http://www.pidseattle.com Reproduction prohibited except by written permission of Partners in Design. Portions of this material were originally published in the booklet Sound Design: Water Quality Awareness for the Design Community, published by Partners in Design and partially funded by The Puget Sound Water Quality Authority.