The Benefits Of Brochure Printing That Is Eco Friendly

By Shirley Jones


An increased sense of responsibility towards environmental conservation is causing changes in consumer spending patterns in many markets. The printing industry is no exception. Consumers are constantly looking out for products and services which reflect the values about the environment that they hold dear. For this reason, all businesses need to shape up or will have to ship out in due course. There are a number of things a business can do to implement brochure printing that is eco friendly.

Strive to utilize your resources optimally and minimize on wastage. These include raw materials such as ink, paper and water and other inputs such as electricity. Putting only the essential information on the brochure will help you save on paper requirements. Another strategy that can be used to reduce the amount of paper used is to have a design in which the brochure is folded several times.

Conventional brochure printing involves the use of petroleum-based inks. These ink types are harmful to the environment due to their production of volatile organic compounds, VOCs. Among the many negative effects, VOCs increase smog formation which reduces visibility. The discovery of vegetable based inks has been a welcome development in many quarters. These inks are just as effective as the conventional types and are free of VOCs.

Another area where one can conserve the environment and cut down on their operating costs at the same time is in the type of paper used in printing. Using paper obtained from pre-consumer and post-consumer waste reduces the demand for virgin paper (which would mean cutting down more trees). Post-consumer waste paper is paper that has been obtained from discarded products. Pre-consumer paper, on the other hand, is left over paper from the manufacturing process.

Apart from reducing the strain on trees, recycling paper helps in conservation in several other ways. For instance, this type of paper usually requires less water to process than virgin paper. There is less effluent emanating from this process than when processing virgin paper. For many years, there were concerns with use of chlorine as a bleaching agent but newer alternative methods which do not involve chlorine have been devised.

The other raw materials can be recycled as well. Water for example, can be recycled and reused to a great degree. If the system is functioning optimally, it can reuse more than 60% of water used in the first cycle. Ink is the other major raw material which can be reused.

Energy efficiency is good for the environment and the business. Work to reduce your reliance on fossil fuel as your source of energy and consider using more of renewable sources such as wind and solar. Get rid of inefficient equipment if possible and replace it with that which can give you higher output per unit of energy consumed. You will need to do regular servicing to the equipment to ensure that they remain efficient throughout.

When you decide to go green, you may have to put up with higher operational costs initially but the investments will pay you back handsomely in the long term. If the shift is too expensive for you to carry out, then the best option is to outsource. Perform a background check to ascertain that your chosen company is environmentally certified.




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