How Green?
Being green or at least thinking of ways to reduce, reuse or recycle all of the everyday products that we buy is playing on all of our minds. This has been our policy for many years, we have always thought up ways to minimise waste, reduce power consumption costs and what little waste there is, is collected by specialist companies that recycle.
All of the papers that we use on our digital and litho presses are from sustainable forests or from recycled paper pulp. Any waste paper that we have; off cut trimmings, press run ups and spoilage are collected by a company that sells it onto a toilet roll manufacturer.
All our litho printing inks, with the exception of metallic inks, are vegetable base inks and not oil or rubber based. This change came into effect in 2006 when most of the ink manufacturers came under pressure by consumers to make this transition.
We have the latest in printing technology, to reduce set up times and minimise the amount of waste paper used to set up. The small amount of electricity these new machines use is about a 5th of the old 3 phase big presses. We also have a modern single phase guillotine which only uses electricity when the blade is activated to cut. With the old 3 phase guillotines, the hydraulic pump would be running continuously; this purchase alone has seen a big reduction in our carbon footprint. Other eco steps we have made are flat LCD screens for all our computers, economy bulbs or strip lights for all our lighting and even planning to do certain jobs on the digital press which is more cost effective and quicker than litho and so less energy is used. All this has helped us reduce our carbon footprint and make savings to bring down the cost of printing.
Looking to the future, we are hoping to make further green steps by using an electricity supplier that uses renewable energy, and to invest in more energy efficient digital printing methods - quicker turnaround, less waste, less energy.