Protecting Nature - Ecological Printing

Deinking of paper - The power to deink paper – basically, to break ink and coatings from it – is vital for sustainable recycling of it. Good deinkability is a prerequisite for using used paper to create graphical papers and hygienic paper products. Effective procedures can be found today for taking away aqueous coatings and sheet-fed offset inks. It is significantly more difficult to achieve good results with UV-cured inks and coatings, the liquid toners used in digital printing, and ink jet inks. Ink that is taken from recycled pulp can be burned to generate energy to run the mill, or sold for making such useful materials as compost or gravel for roads. A single piece of paper may contain new fibers as well as fibers who have already been recycled once, twice, or several times. Paper-making fibers can generally be recycled 5-7 times before they end up being too short to be recycled again. Successful recycling needs clean recovered paper which is free of pollutants such as food, plastic, metal, and other trash. Contaminated paper can introduce pollutants and bacteria into the recycling method. Furthermore, different grades of paper - corrugated boxes, newspapers, and office paper - must be kept separate, because the different grades of recovered paper are used to generate specialized types of recycled paper products. Eco Inks and Coatings - Some of the pigments used in ink contain metallic compounds which are harmful to human health and the environment such as cadmium, chromium, lead and mercury. Conventional printing inks are petroleum-based and used with alcohol-based solvents. As alcohol and petroleum evaporate Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are emitted. VOCs symbolize environmental pollution and a health hazard to press-room workers. In terms of atmospheric air pollution, VOCs react with nitrogen oxides in the existence of sunlight to create ozone pollution or photochemical smog. Offset inks generally include to 30 % of mineral oils. Using Eco-inks, also known as Eco-solvent inks and green inks, can cut down at the consumption of fossil fuels. These items use modified vegetable oils instead, such as linseed or soy esters. Eco-inks are already widely used in some markets.The differences in reproduction quality and processing are barely evident. All important European producers are involved in the voluntary commitment made by the EU ink industry to protecting health and ensuring product safety. Soy and vegetable based inks also benefit the environment due to greater ease of removal from wastepaper while De-inking for recycling. Also with UV inks a few producers have succeeded in changing up to30 % of the elements that go into their formulations with renewable raw materials. From an ecological perspective, in connection with packaging it is relevant that only very little amounts of ink ingredients migrate from the printed surface into the substrate. Print coatings may also be regarded as unpigmented inks. Like Eco-inks,it is therefore also straightforward to use vegetable oil derivatives instead of mineral oils to create them. Dispersion and UV coatings are considerably less conducive to substituting renewable raw materials.