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There are a number of misconceptions when looking at the effects that UV print has on the environment compared to the conventional printing method. This is a statement of fact to clear up any misleading information. Printing either conventional or UV can produce two different forms of emissions. 1. Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs). “UV-cured inks DO NOT contain ANY HAPs that appear on EPA’s list of regulated HAPs.” Of the 187 dangerous chemicals that conventional printing may emit and is regulated against, UV printing produces NONE. 2. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). They are carbon based organic compounds that react with nitrogen oxides when released into the air and sunlight to form OZONE. Any ozone that breaks free from the UV lamps is turned into pure oxygen immediately. Therefore it is environmentally positive. UV printing converts the ink/coating to 100 per cent solid material. Only a tiny portion of VOCs is emitted because UV ink doesn’t have the components that evaporate into the atmosphere. (it is actually cured to the paper). The UV printing system that we pride our business on surpasses all the EPA emissions standards. |
Conversely conventional printing produces up to 50 per cent drying emissions including water vapour, ammonia, and glycol ether solvent. As opposed to UV printing that produces less than one per cent emission volatiles. This is a massive difference. There have been great improvements in the ‘up’ cycling (ie higher grade) of paper printed with UV technology. With the increased use of the flotation process for de-inking and the fact that UV print is insoluble UV printing is much easier to filter in the recycling process than conventional print, using less chemicals and power in the recycling process. In landfill conventional print biodegrades in an alkaline state and is absorbed back into the environment and water table. That can be very destructive. The benefit of UV print being insoluble means when it is put into landfill it remains a solid and doesn’t biodegrade back into the environment. At Energi Print we recycle 100 per cent of our waste paper, plastic, press chemicals, blankets, etcetera. |
