It’s funny, recently, another printer was in our shop at TAG. They said… “hmmm…. that smell. That’s why I got into print. I love that smell.” He was talking about our craft of working with paper, ink, alcohol (for printing, people), the cleaning agents, the press lubes, and much more. It’s funny, he mentioned they went alcohol free in his shop. Well, we are too so whatever he was smelling, wasn’t alcohol. It reminded me how far the industry has come.
- No more alcohol used as a drying agent for water/ink
- Soy based inks for offset and a variety of environmentally friendly bases for digital & remember we’re ink not toner based. (toner is still pretty nasty stuff)
- Aluminum plates being recycled
- Paper recycling – of course
And, dozens of other things that have changed in our industry allowing printers to be better stewards of the environment. Since a large percentage of our work is digital, check out HP’s site on how the Indigo digital press is built around a eco-system of doing good for our earth.