Guest Post: Eco Tip – Gang Printing is Not Earth Friendly

Welcome to guest blogger, David Weiner from Consolidated Printing. Consolidated Printing is one of our printing partners and a pioneer in sustainable and healthy printing practices.

ECO TIP

Reduce.  Re-use.  Recycle.  The “three R’s” of sustainability.  This week we want to give you a chance to “reduce”. 

Bear with me a bit as I explain….

As many of you may know, there are a host of on-line printing companies that offer “fast turn”,  cheap pricing for  business cards,  postcards and “leave behinds”.  Yes, prices are low — but so is the sustainability.

They are “gang” printers putting a bunch of different projects on a single press sheet at one time — then using UV coating so the ink is “cured” instantly and the print shop can cut the pieces as soon as they come off the press.  Hence the fast turn….

Several years ago I knew a printer who was a sub-contractor for an on-line gang-run production house — so I got to see the whole process first-hand.   On the plus side, by ganging jobs together, they “reduce” the number of plates and the amount of energy and ink resources that would be used compared to printing each project separately.  On the negative side, however, other sustainability issues are both dangerous and numerous.

The UV process is very energy intensive.  It uses 1-1/2 times the energy of a conventional press — mostly to run the high heat and literally blinding UV lights that cure the ink.  (Pressmen, if not adequately protected, can go blind from the lights.).  In everyday language — it’s an “energy suck”.

Worse, many UV systems do not completely cure the special inks and UV coating — cured enough for production purposes, yes — but not enough to be COMPLETELY cured — and uncured UV coating is highly carcinogenic.  The press crew is exposed to this danger on a daily basis — but so are you and your family when the partially  “raw” coatings are dumped into landfills and potentially contaminate the water supply — or are incinerated and released into the air.

The reason UV materials are dumped into landfills or incinerated is that UV coating clogs the filters that are used in the  paper recycling process.  Recyclers, if possible, will actually remove UV coated materials before they start the paper pulping and de-inking process — and the UV coated materials either head to a landfill or go up in smoke and into the air you breathe.

Now none of this is immediately life-threatening — and no, the sky is not falling — at least not yet.  But if we are really stewards of the Earth for our children and future generations, this is not a problem we can ignore.

Paper is another issue.  The company I saw used lower grade 14 pt. coated one side cover for the business cards, post cards and buckslips — letting the high gloss UV coating mask the dullness and poor quality  of the paper.  After all, cheap was the name of the game. 

They also used “virgin” pulp rather than recycled paper.  Since their customers were only concerned about price and speed — recycling wound up taking a double hit — virgin pulp and a non-recyclable end product.  The proverbial “double whammy”.

So here’s what Consolidated will do….

To help you “reduce” — yet in the process avoid the sustainability problems of “conventional” UV gang-runs –  if we have enough participants, we will do “gang runs” of business cards, postcards, buckslips (8-1/2 x 3-5/8) ,and “Slim Jim” brochures (7-1/2″w x 9″h flat size) during the week of August 2nd – 6th.

But instead of carcinogenic inks, coatings and solvents — we’ll use our petroleum free, toxin free natural based materials.

Concentrating on the business card and post card applications of this process, we will use 100# recycled white uncoated cover (approx. 13 pt.) as our paper stock — but do note we will be running all items out of  4/color process — no PMS colors.  Some colors –especially blues — may not print exactly as they appear in the PMS book.  We will advise you  if a PMS color you want to match will pose any problems.

Also, we will carefully match projects by color, ensuring that color contamination will not occur as it commonly does at the  “bang-’em-out” gang run discount firms.  As with all jobs run at Consolidated, sustainability and quality go hand in hand.  True quality means it’s sustainable — and sustainability demands quality in order to retain its integrity.

So “reduce” your “resource footprint” by reducing the amount of our toxin free inks and solvents you would normally use — as well as the number of plates, the amount of electricity consumed — and “reduce” your printing expenses all at the same time. 

You’ll also “reduce” your stress by knowing we plan on doing this every three months, so reprints will still be available at these same “reduced” prices.

Call Kathy or Wally at Consolidated’s office to reserve your space today.

Reduce.  Re-use.  Recycle. 

All the best,
David

Printing is more than a commodity — it’s about stewardship
– Marilyn Jones, President, Consolidated Printing

David Weiner
Vice President, Sales
dwa@consolidatedprinting.net
Consolidated Printing
5942 N. Northwest Highway
Chicago, IL 60631
Office: 773-631-2800
Fax: 773-631-2822
SGP and FSC Certified
Illinois EPA Inspected

Environmental Accolades

Illinois Great Green Printer (first printer awarded this certification) 1996
The Governor’s Pollution Prevention Award 2006
The Governor’s Pollution Prevention Award 2007
Mayor Daley’s Green Practices Market Transformation Award 2006
Mayor Daley’s Green Products Market Transformation Award 2006
William D. Schaeffer Environmental Award (the printing industry’s highest “eco-honor”) 2008
Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Award 2009
Environmental – WBE/DBE – Union
Established 1973

Defending direct mail

This is in response to an article from HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/todd-paglia/junk-mails-endless-summer_b_201928.html

First of all, not all advertising mail is junk mail. Blaming the advertising community for identify theft because we strive to use direct mail (instead of junk) is really out there.

You can accurately call advertising mail “junk” when it is poorly targeted mail. For that reason, the majority of advertisers that use mail, use it wisely & don’t waste their money with a shotgun approach, they target their mail & only send it to those that would be interested in reading it, this is called direct mail.

As for the creation of Do Not Mail registries, there already is one: www.dmachoice.org. Why should we waste time creating legislation that will hurt American jobs when there is already a registry out there? Don’t our legislators have more important issues to focus on?

And how about the climate change issue? Everyone loves to jump on the bandwagon that direct mail destroys the environment. Think again. Take a look at this article on research done about a consumer’s carbon footprint comparing direct mail & what a person uses every day: http://tinyurl.com/p7rb64.

This study shows that running a single refrigerator for a year is equivalent to the creation & delivery of 5,000 letters; taking a two-minute shower is equivalent to receiving 40 letters; running an electric water heater for a year is about the same as 20,000 letters received; & the list goes on.

As for the claim that an “army of lobbyists have managed to quietly defeat” DNM bills, I’d like to say I WISH we had an army to us help out! I run a small mail shop & know a lot of other companies (not just mailers) that would have to close up shop if DNM bills were passed. The article I mentioned above goes on to say that the passage of such bills “would eliminate approx. 8.4 million jobs nationwide & halt the $1 trillion economic activity of the mailing & printing industry.” Not to mention all of the small businesses that use our services. We talk about being concerned about jobs going overseas – but yet we’re more than willing to force local companies out of business for the sake of less mail in our mailbox?

All of us in the mailing & printing industry agree that junk mail is bad. I don’t know any mailer that likes to send “junk”. We advise our clients to not waste their money sending junk. If you want to send a mailing, clean your list, craft a compelling message & only send it to those people that are interested in working with you. Doing otherwise is a waste of money.

As for the beginning of your article – about the postage increase – why not stick to the subject instead of bashing an entire industry. That “summer sale” you referenced will only be useful to approx. 4,000 mailers nationwide (compare that to the 25 million small businesses in the country that can’t use this option). The USPS is trying to find ways to get mailers mailing again. You talk about how they aren’t making money, it’s true, it’s partly because companies are shying away from using direct mail because of articles like yours that bash the industry. Stop bashing the industry that keeps your First-Class Mail stamp affordable. Without advertising mail the USPS would be out of business because consumers buying stamps would not be able to keep them in business. I don’t mind the 44¢ stamp, in another country it could cost a lot more!

After watching this SNL skit that the author references…I really believe he watched this before writing the article! Some of his comments are straight out of a “junk mail” parody!