A Pollution Prevention Guide for the Printing Industry

The Printing Industry

Commercial printing is a chemical-intensive industry that produces many types of waste. The waste comes from a variety of activities, such as plate-making, image processing, and printing and finishing. Some of the wastes are classified as hazardous by federal or state regulations; others, though not necessarily hazardous, can nevertheless be damaging to the environment if not handled properly; and all require proper treatment and/or disposal at significant cost to the business. A list of the types of waste that the shop owner or manager must contend with could include:

Whatever the nature and characteristics of the waste may be, it all has one thing in common: All waste represents loss of resources and loss of money.

Businesses throughout the country have implemented waste reduction programs and found that there are many benefits to be gained from such an approach to the management of resources.

Reducing the amount of waste your business generates can help you:

The most effective way to minimize the losses associated with waste is to avoid producing the waste in the first place. This is the concept behind DNREC’s Pollution Prevention and Compliance Assistance Program, which has produced this Fact Sheet to assist you and others in the printing business to reduce your losses while at the same time helping to improve the environment.

Getting Started

Getting off to a good start is crucial to the success of any endeavor. Here are some important things to consider in undertaking a waste reduction program:

• Make a commitment to pollution prevention. This commitment must start at the top, with the owner or manager of the shop, and extend to every employee.
• Involve the employees in designing and implementing pollution prevention measures.
• Provide training in waste reduction techniques and practices. Don’t let this be a one-shot effort -- periodic “refresher courses” will help to increase employees’ awareness of the important of waste reduction.
• Establish incentives to encourage workers to use waste reduction techniques and to suggest changes in design or operating procedures that would further reduce waste generation.
• Assess the shop’s waste. Identify sources, types, and amounts of waste being produced. This will make it easier to pinpoint areas where waste reduction techniques can be applied and to measure the success of your efforts.
• Printing materials that have exceeded their shelf life may still be usable. Check with local theater groups, college graphic arts departments, etc., before discarding expired materials.

Establishing Good Housekeeping Practices

Improving the shop’s housekeeping practices is often the easiest and least expensive way to reduce waste. Good housekeeping includes good inventory control and efficient operating procedures. Here are some housekeeping tips:

• Keep storage and work areas clean and well organized, and keep all containers properly labeled.
• Inspect materials upon delivery, and immediately return unacceptable materials to the supplier.
• Keep accurate records of raw material usage so that you can measure reductions in use . Mark the purchase date on each container and adopt a “first-in, first out” policy so that older materials are used up before new ones are opened; assign someone to distribute and keep track of raw materials.
• Practice preventive maintenance to avoid future losses. Periodically inspect containers and equipment for leaks.
• Keep all containers covered to prevent evaporation, spillage, or drying out of contents.
• Keep waste streams separate for reuse, recycling, or treatment. Keep non-hazardous materials from becoming contaminated.

Reducing the Toxicity and Quantity of Printing Wastes

Waste reduction entails a reduction in both the toxicity and the quantity of waste being generated. Here are some suggestions for reducing some of the wastes that may pose disposal problems for the printing industry:

Silver

1. Reduce silver-containing waste by switching to films that don’t contain silver. Possible substitutes are vesicular, diazo, electrostatic, or photo-polymer film.
2. Recover silver from wastewater. Recovery systems are commercially available and widely used.

Inks

1. Use inks that have been formulated with waste reduction and energy conservation in mind. Soy-based inks can replace oil-based inks in offset lithographic printing. For gravure and flexographic printing, water-based inks are gaining in popularity as pressure to curtail solvent emissions is driving the research needed to improve the quality of these inks.
2. Adopt a standard ink sequence; this will eliminate the need to clean out the fountains in order to change the ink rotation.
3. The time that it takes to fill, operate, and empty an ink recycler is just about the same as the time required to prepare waste ink for disposal.
4. Clean ink fountains only when changing colors or when the ink may dry out between runs (this strategy will reduce the quantity of both waste ink and waste solvent). Special non-drying aerosols can be sprayed onto ink foundations to prevent the ink from drying overnight or during shutdowns.
5. Most inks can be recycled, either on-site or off-site. A common technique is the blending of various left-over colored inks to produce black ink. Small print shops may find it advantageous to coordinate ink recycling with other small shops or to send their waste ink to an ink manufacturer or to a larger printing plant that already has a recycling system in place.

Solvents

1. Be Wary of Accepting Free Samples of Solvents. If they turn out not to meet your needs, you will be left with the problem of disposing of them. Don’t accept free samples unless the vendor agrees to take back any unused portion.
2. Look for substitutes for toxic solvents. Replace highly toxic aromatic solvents with safer substitutes, such as hexane. Use solvents only for cleaning inks and oils; for other cleaning jobs, use soap or detergent.
3. Use a separate container of solvent for cleaning each color printing unit; collect the solvent and use it again for the same color. The used solvent can be reused to clean most of the ink from a unit, and only a small amount of fresh solvent will then be needed to complete the job.
4. Limit the amount of solvent that can be applied to cleaning rags. Apply the solvent with a squeeze bottle or plunger rather than by soaking the rag in the solvent. A little solvent goes a long way.
5. Use automatic blanket cleaners. These systems not only improve efficiency and reduce waste but also are safer for employees.
6. If possible, purchase solvents from a company that will pick up and recycle the spent solvent.

Waste from Process Baths

1. Investigate the feasibility of installing electronic imaging and/or laser plate-making. This is a costly alternative but can significantly reduce the need for photographing and re-shooting.
2. Use counter-current, rather than parallel, washing.
3. Eliminate metal etching or plating processes by substituting non-hazardous alternatives. Possible substitutes are:
   • Pre-sensitized lithographic plates
   • Plastic or photo-polymer plates
   • Flexographic plates
   • Electrostatic plates
4. Minimize process bath contamination by using squeegees to wipe off excess liquid in non-automated processing systems.
5. Extend the life of fixing baths. Techniques for accomplishing this include:
   • Adding ammonium thiosulfate to the bath. This will double the allowable concentration of silver buildup.
   • Using an acid stop bath prior to the fixing bath.
   • Adding acetic acid to the fixing bath to keep the pH low.

Rags and Wipes

1. Reuse press wipes as long as possible. Use a dirty wipe for the first pass and a clean one for the second pass.
2. Use rags rather than disposable wipers whenever possible. If your shop is not equipped to launder the rags, find out if there is a commercial rag cleaning business in your area that could provide this service for you.
3. If you use disposable wipes, remove as much solvent from them as possible before disposing of them. Keep the used wipes and the spent solvent in separate containers. This could save you money on disposal, since hazardous waste often costs less to dispose of if it can be pumped.
4. Develop procedures for removing solvent from rags (such as wringing or centrifuging). This will make the rags easier to launder. Take special precautions to ensure that no rags end up in the waste solvent drum; they can jam pumping equipment and increase your waste disposal costs.
5. Use parts-washing equipment as an alternative to rags for cleaning trays that collect solvents and inks below the press rollers.

Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling Other Wastes

Waste reduction plans address all of the waste streams being generated by a particular business or industry. Try to find ways to apply the Three Rs to all of your shop’s waste, including such things as waste paper, empty containers, lubricating fluids, etc. Here are some tips for these types of materials:

• Install web break detectors. Designed for the purpose of avoiding serious damage to presses, these devices also reduce the waste that would be generated if a web break occurred. Automotive web splicers can also help reduce waste.
• Purchase inks in containers that can be returned to the supplier for refilling.
• Find as many ways to reuse paper as you can (as note pads, poster paper, etc.). Recycle as much of your waste paper as possible.
• Recycle lube oils.

Following up

As long as wastes are being produced, there is the potential for waste reduction. Less-polluting materials, equipment, and procedures are constantly being developed, so that wastes that are difficult or costly to control today may be easily eliminated tomorrow. Stay alert for such developments.

When buying new equipment, look for equipment that will minimize both the amount of toxic materials used and the amount of waste produced.

Reassess the shop’s operations and waste handling practices periodically with an eye to avoiding the temptation of slipping back into old, more wasteful ways of doing things and to identifying additional waste reduction possibilities.

Publicize the firm’s commitment to waste reduction. Customers will feel good about doing business with a company that is environmentally responsible.

Sources of Additional Help

This Fact Sheet is not intended to be a comprehensive list all of the techniques that could be used to reduce waste in a printing shop. Each shop is unique, with its own challenges and opportunities for minimizing waste; therefore, each waste reduction program will be unique.

There are an number of resources available to help Delaware businesses develop and implement programs that meet their individual needs:

The Delaware Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a private, non-profit corporation which is dedicated to improving the quality, productivity, and profitability of Delaware manufacturers, and to serving as a prime service resource for the state’s new and existing manufacturers. The DEMEP can be reached at (302)283-3133.

The Northeast Industrial Waste Exchange may be able to help you find companies that can use your wastes. You can call the Exchange directly at (315)422-6512.

The Delaware Pollution Prevention and Compliance Assistance Program in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (302)739-6400 provides technical assistance, information resources, as well as assistance with other services that are available to your business.

Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control

This publication is one of a series of pollution prevention guides for various types of businesses. For more information on this and other pollution prevention or waste minimization programs, contact the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control at 739-6400.

The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is an equal opportunity employer. No person or group shall be excluded from participation, denied any benefits, or subjected to discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or handicap.

Last Updated: May 28, 2002

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