With the growing calls of environmentalists
to save the earth through green measures, printing companies are in a dilemma
today. As the process involves a lot of heavy machineries and ink which draw on
a lot of energy and resources, printing can be quite destructive to the
environment. Using chemical options that are detrimental to the environment, it
is not surprising to have printing companies resort to cheaper resources. A printing company must be chosen with
great care and it must be found out that whether green practices are being
adopted by them.
Hence, to reduce the carbon footprint of
printing companies, eco-friendly measures must be considered.
Green measures
Without over-emphasizing on profits, green
printers must be innovative and creative in their printing procedures. To
emulate in greening the earth, such corporate social responsibility
consciousness would be a good example to other industry players as in the long
run, every party benefits.
Different types of materials and resources
may be used as there are various types of printing methods. With the inked
image transferred from plate to blanket, offset printing is commonly employed printing
technique. Instead of chemical ink, the ink used can be vegetable ink; strongly
encouraged, the former is gentle to the environment.
If natural oil is used and not synthetic oil,
the lithographic process uses oil and water which can be eco-friendly. Creating
a lot of waste products that are detrimental to the environment, a lot of ink,
oil and water are used in any printing process. Hence, to reduce the amount of
unnecessary and harmful waste products to the earth, it is preferred that green
options of resources are considered by printing companies.
Outcomes
With eco-friendly printing approaches, it is
possible to maintain the high quality outcome or image desired. With green
measures adopted on printing, there is no need to compromise on quality or
profit. There would be a higher demand to research and source out more
impactful green resources to any process, if more printers and other industries
adopt eco-friendly measures. To the delight of the businesses, this would bring
the cost of materials and resources down and profits can go up.
Just like today, with the sun as the primary
source that is free, solar energy is widely available. Yet, this free energy is
not being harnessed by many businesses but instead they prefer to use the more
expensive grid services. As solar energy can be used to power the heavy presses,
besides greening the earth, eco-friendly printing can cut down expenses over
the long run. Little or no maintenance is required and no tax is imposed on
this source.
Online print interfaces can be used for small printing needs.