~ Selected Writings ~
The Scent of A Paper:
Environmentally-Friendly Solutions For Inks (Page 3)

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(return to previous page) .... print shop manager Paul Bruce of The Daily News, which has been using primarily vegetable ink for three or four years without problems, said that he goes through about 230 pounds of vegetable ink daily.

This translates to 77,280 pounds per year, for a company which has far fewer and smaller pages, and which sells only 32,900 copies per weekday as compared to a whooping 140,000 for The Herald-Chronicle! Let's not forget those cleaning chemicals, either. It does add up....

Regarding the lack of a ready supply of vegetable ink, we turned to Paul Fitzgimmons, Web Atantic printer for The Coast and The Globe and Mail. When asked how he gets his vegetable ink, Paul said the ink must be transported from the Adrin Diamond Flint Inc. Corp in Ontario to Nova Scotia.

The transportation cost had initially been "very expensive", but in the future he plans to order a full truckload from Ontario, bringing the costs back in line. If a smaller press can afford to have vegetable ink trucked in, then the bigger Herald Chronicle should also be able to.

There are other regional printers which aren't using vegetable ink. The St. Mary's University printing shop is "considering" it, even requesting a sample to test out.

Dalhousie University's printing center uses only 100 pounds of ink annually. It is, after all, a "very small" printing shop. When asked about the possible effect on employees' health, the print shop manager, David Doyle, said he would investigate, and if it was viable and high-quality, he would be happy to change over to vegetable inks.

How can the average reader help initiate a change to safer inks and cleaning methods? You can let the print shops know you want vegetable inks and vegetable ester blanket washes used from now on, not just for their employees' health, but also to reduce local pollution.

If they need to know more, Rodger Albright, head of the Pollution Prevention Program at Environment Canada's office in Dartmouth, is currently negotiating for "green and profitable printing" courses to be offered, and would be more than pleased to hear from companies or individuals interested in these courses.

He can be reached at 902-426-4480; fax 902-426-8373, and his e-mail address is rodger.albright@ec.gc.ca.

His "Green and Profitable Printing" notebooks contain technical information about profitably recycling waste ink, specific environmentally-safe products to use, and ways to reduce indoor pollution. They are available to interested companies.

Large newspapers such as the The Chronicle Herald, publishing over 40 million thick copies a year, would be prime candidates for the changeover.

Meanwhile, Dave Pace and his employees continue to breathe the harmful fumes daily. Letting the paper have a few "friendly calls" from concerned readers would let them know they have real reader support for this change-over.

This is truly a matter of health - and breath!

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