Sustainability

Air Emissions

Removing solvent from the product is the largest single thing an ink maker can do about air quality.

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Our approach

Emissions from the product, not just the plant

A printing-ink plant has two emission stories. One is the site: dust from pigment handling, solvent vapour from manufacture and cleaning, and combustion from energy use. The other, far larger, is what the product releases on the customer’s press.

Solvent-based systems release their carrier to atmosphere or to an abatement unit. Water-based flexo and gravure inks are formulated at 40–50 % solids against 25–35 % for solvent inks, so less carrier is applied per unit area, and co-solvent levels are kept low enough to stay within low-VOC classification. UV and LED-curable systems contain no water and no solvent at all: solids are almost 100 %, so cure releases almost nothing.

Autumn landscape with rolling hills

Dust and pigment handling

Pigment is supplied as powder and as pre-dispersed paste. Where powder is handled, extraction and enclosure keep airborne dust out of the workplace and out of the stack. Moving a grade from powder to a resin-bearing grinding base removes the exposure at source, which is why our high-strength dispersions are prepared this way.

Solvent in manufacture and cleaning

Wash-up is where solvent use concentrates. Formulating water-based inks for resolubility means the ink redissolves cleanly on the anilox and plate, so less wash solvent and less cleaning chemical is needed per job. On the UV side there is no solvent in the product at all.

What replaces it

Our water-based heat-seal lacquer replaces a solvent lacquer that released several kilograms of solvent per thousand square metres of web. Our LED grades cut the electricity of cure and remove the ozone that a medium-pressure mercury lamp produces. Both are emission reductions that happen on the customer’s site, not ours.

Where the reduction comes from

Low VOC

Water-based systems below regulatory VOC thresholds.

No Solvent

UV and LED systems at almost 100 % solids.

No Ozone

LED cure produces no ozone, unlike mercury lamps.

Site Controls

Extraction and enclosure where powder is handled.

Don't see what you're looking for?

Please feel free to call us. We colour-match to any request and develop inks around your press-room need.