Seacourt Environmental printing

Environmental Printing: Why Waterless Offset has a huge positive impact on the Environment

• The print industry is the 5^th largest and 6th worst polluting manufacturing industry in the UK
• By its nature printing it is an extremely resource intensive activity, consuming large quantities of fresh water, energy and forestry
• On average a UK printer is responsible for emitting 20 tonnes of VOC (volatile organic compounds) into the atmosphere every year. There are over 12,000 printers… A huge amount of VOCs from one industry in the UK alone
• VOCs along with NO_x (produced from burning fossil fuels for example car engines, coal burning and so on) are largely responsible for producing ground level ozone. Ground level ozone contributes to asthma (6 out of 10 children in the UK suffer from asthma or asthma related illnesses - the highest in the western world)
• Using a Waterless Offset printer will immediately reduce VOC emissions by over 98% and water consumption to a tiny fraction of that of conventional offset printers
• Due to the dense population of the UK, the Sudan has far more access per capita to drinking water than the residents of the south east of England
• Waterless Offset technology gives a far better quality of print than conventional methods, due to the fact that water is not used in the printing process, enabling brighter colours, sharper “dots” and much finer screen rulings
• Waterless Offset is the ultimate environmental offset printing process
• So there is simply no need to use a resource intensive and environmentally damaging process when there is a more sustainable and technologically better alternative available

Low Alcohol Printing

Do not be fooled, Alcohol free or Low Alcohol printing is not the most environmentally sound printing process, it is better than conventional offset lithography for sure, but it still has some issues.

Namely that they are still using Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) or substitute which still has a negative impact on our environment. IPA or a substitute wetting agent is used to break the surface tension of the water used in the offset process.

IPA or substitute is a liquid Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) and when it comes into contact with the atmosphere it evaporates and then becomes a gas VOC. This has a dramatic impact on our environment both at local level and also at outer atmosphere level.

The most significant environmental impact of VOCs is their formation with vehicle exhaust to form photochemical smog, which has a negative impact on all living things.

However, in liquid form VOCs can effect water and soil quality. They also have an effect on the health of pressroom workers and have been linked to breathing difficulties, liver and kidney damage.

VOC’s are bad news, full stop.

So, what’s the most environmentally sound way to print?

Waterless Offset, as the name suggests does not use any water in the printing process as per conventional offset, and therefore does not require any Alcohol or Alcohol substitute and so is not responsible for emitting nasty VOC’s into our atmosphere.

This is very simple, it has massive environmental benefits and it also produces a higher print quality result.

So, you can make a significant difference by simply specifying Waterless Offset – easy!