27/05/2008 by admin.

Environment conservation is a priority for all of us. We have now realized the urgency of keeping the environment free from harmful emissions and chemical interactions. Anything that disturbs the ecological balance and pollutes the environment is hazardous and should be avoided or at least minimized to a great extent. The production and usage of various commodities should comply with eco friendly standards. This has given rise to the term “environment friendly” that essentially refers to the processes, products and services that cause minimum harm to the environment.

Printing is one such process that produces harmful wastes leading to environmental pollution. The use of petroleum inks, varnishes, laminates and adhesives leads to the production of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The release of VOCs in the atmosphere has adverse environmental effects. This not only pollutes the air but also leads to respiratory ailments.

To save the environment, publishing houses should print green i.e. the printing process/ technology should be eco-friendly. Printers should comply with environment friendly rules and regulations to check the VOC release. The printing industry uses the natural resources in a major way. To control this heavy use of natural resources and save the environment, a new kind of printing process have made way into the printing industry. They are called green printers. Such printing houses use environment friendly processes and rely on recycled paper rather than non-recycled ones. Use of recycled paper does a lot of good to the environment by saving trees that would otherwise be cut to produce paper. Apart from this, recycled papers leads to energy saving and reduced release of air pollutants. Green printing houses source the paper from well managed forests that comply with strict environmental standards. The printing process is planned carefully to achieve optimum output by minimal usage of energy. The papers are sourced only from FSC (Forest stewardship companies) certified companies.

Green printing is a responsible and specialized job and thus it is offered by only a handful of printing presses. Green printers comply with all the environment friendly standards offering optimum production at minimal environmental damage.

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27/05/2008 by admin.

In this age of digital technology, printing presses still play a major role in the production of a range of materials such as booklets, posters, postcards, brochures, business cards, calendars, stationeries etc. While this wide-spread process of printing gives us such informative and eye pleasing products, the resultant environment pollution caused due to these goes unnoticed. Saving the environment is a responsibility that is vested on for all of us and thus the need of the hour is to print green.
Printing green refers to the process that reduces wastes, encourages recycling and implements other measures that leads to an eco friendly printing operation. Such printing presses carry on their processes in a way that causes minimal harm to the environment. The primary concern for a green printing press is to manage wastes effectively. The objective is to have less waste being generated as that would mean fewer measures to be adopted to eliminate such wastes. Waste management starts from the prepress process itself. Efforts are concentrated towards pollution prevention processes that start with photographic chemistry management and recycling of used plates etc. Furthermore the wastes are segregated into categories such as hazardous and non hazardous wastes. The discharge of hazardous wastes is carried out in an eco friendly manner. Waste management in green printing houses are two fold i.e. either they implement measures to reduce wastes or else recycle them.
High volatile organic compounds are one of the prime causes of air pollution in the printing industry. These compounds evaporate very quickly at the room temperature which not only adds to more material consumption but also leads to air pollution. Green printers use low VOC’s in their printing processes thus reducing the air emissions and also less material consumption.
Green printers adopt various means to implement the current printing technologies that are eco-friendly. Thus they not only help in reducing environmental pollution but improve the overall quality of the product.

Source: Free Online Articles from ArticlesBase.com

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27/05/2008 by admin.

The business of manufacturing printer inks and printer ink cartridges is a multimillion-dollar industry. Most people who own computers also own printers and make use of printer ink cartridges. Hundreds of millions of printer ink cartridges were sold in Europe and the United States in the last two years alone.

The question is: where do all these empty printer ink cartridges go? Ideally, used printer ink cartridges should find their way to special recycling centers where the materials these cartridges were made of are retrieved for future use. Unfortunately, only 25% of all those millions of cartridges consumed every year go that way.

Empty Printer Ink Cartridges Can Contribute to Pollution

Empty printer ink cartridges are non-biodegradable products. This means that if these cartridges end up in a landfill, they will just sit there for years and years without decaying.

Not only that, the chemicals that make up printer ink, not to mention the chemicals that make these inks resistant to fading as well as produce brilliant colors, can be quite harmful to the environment. These chemicals are also capable of seeping into the soil in the landfill and finding their way into the ground water. From the ground water, they can eventually get mixed into other bodies of water, even into the ocean. Next thing we know, we are actually drinking printer ink chemicals in our coffee and eating sushi made with fish tainted with printer ink chemicals.

Printer Ink Cartridges are Made from Finite Resources

We also need to consider the materials that make up the printer ink cartridge itself. Each printer ink cartridge is made from plastic and metal. Plastic is a by-product of petroleum while metals are mined from the earth. Both petroleum and metal are finite resources.

Recycling Printer Ink Cartridges Helps the Environment

Rather than simply throwing away empty printer ink cartridges, we should all be conscientious enough to bring them to special recycling centers. Also, before we buy a printer, we ought to check out if the manufacturer of this printer we are interested in has some sort of recycling program wherein they accept empty printer ink cartridges carrying their brand name.

We could also buy remanufactured printer ink on occasion. This type of printer ink makes use of recycled cartridges. However, before we buy remanufactured printer ink cartridges, we ought to make sure that these cartridges will not harm our printers, especially if our printers are still under warranty. Good companies that deal with remanufactured printer ink cartridges will always offer guarantees that their products will not ruin printers.

Always be conscientious even with the printer ink cartridges that you use. Recycle empty cartridges and buy remanufactured ink as much as possible.

Source: Free Online Articles from ArticlesBase.com

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