~ Selected Writings ~
The Scent of A Paper:
Environmentally-Friendly Solutions For Inks (Page 2)

back to list of writing samples

(return to previous page) Vegetable-based black and color inks do not release VOCs into the air during the printing process, and actually - believe it or not - have deeper, more vibrant colors. Usually made from soybean oil, vegetable inks are non-toxic, as opposed to mineral oil; in fact, some of you eat soybean oil regularly, in the form of cooking oils, margarine and salad dressings.

Soybeans are easily grown, renewable, and abundant, just the opposite of mineral ink which is neither renewable nor sustainable, and growing less and less abundant with each year.

Vegetable inks are also "recycling-friendly"; in other words, the waste left over from recycling vegetable inks isn't hazardous to our environment, wherein the waste left over from mineral ink pollutes far more.

But it's not just mineral inks that release VOCs into the air in printing shops. The cleaning chemicals used to 'wash' the printing machines after each printing job release VOCs, too. These cleaners (called 'blanket washes') are considered one of the largest sources of air pollution within the printing industry. The VOC content is an unbelievable 100% for traditional blanket washes, while its vegetable alternative,"vegetable ester blanket washes", it's around 5%.

Surely it's worth the temporary hassle to re-train the employees to use this alternative cleaner properly?

An argument put forth is that vegetable ink and vegetable ester blanket washes are more expensive, or that there are a lot of problems with vegetable ink. That just ain't so. It may be more expensive by the pound, but they're either comparable in price or even cheaper in the long run because less is needed to do the same job.

Is there anyone presently using vegetable ink? Well, there's The Globe and Mail and The Daily News, both of which use vegetable inks. Local printing commercial shops such as Bounty and Metrographic Green Print have also been using 100% vegetable ink for years without any problem.

The region's largest newspaper, the Halifax Chronicle Herald, printing 140,000-145,000 copies per day Monday to Saturday, uses only 5 - 10% vegetable inks. Asked what would convince him to change to the environmentally-friendly inks, their print shop manager, Dave Pace, said: "we would have to see if our customers would be willing to pay more for the paper."

He was informed that vegetable ink is actually compatible in cost, and no increase would be necessary.. He also explained how he'd been told that there is no ready supply of vegetable ink in Halifax, hence the low volume of vegetable ink being used.

When asked as to how much ink he must buy to publish the paper, Dave Pace apologized, saying he didn't have that information. Simple math told me that with 140,000 copies being printed six days a week, it amounted to over 40 million newspapers each year.

While Dave Pace couldn't answer the question....NEXT PAGE

back to list of writing samples
RETURN TO MENU