Kainos Print is an environmentally friendly organisation. We achieve this in several ways. The majority (though not all) of what we produce is printed digitally, and digital printing has some enormous environmental benefits over the more common offset process.
Digital presses print the exact number of copies you want. Conventional offset presses use a lot of paper ‘running up’ the press to achieve the correct colours.
If we print a job digitally, we may print two or three sheets at the start of a print run to ensure pages are in register, and front to back registration is correct.
Customers whose jobs are being printed using conventional offset are often persuaded to buy more copies of a job than they really need (go on, take 5000, it will only cost another $50.00). More paper than is necessary is used, more storage is required, and inevitably when the job becomes out of date, it must be disposed of — all consequences that are environmentally unfriendly
Wherever possible, we purchase paper from environmentally accredited suppliers who conform to stringent environmental standards such as the European Union’s Eco Management and Audit Scheme.
Digital presses are not messy and no chemicals are required to clean them.
Digital printing involves an image going directly from a computer to the printer, and then onto paper. There is no need for film or plates, and the associated need to develop them using a chemical process.
Conventional presses, however all require the use of plates for an image to be transferred to paper. These plates are usually made of plastic, polyester or aluminium Sometimes a digital image is transferred to film, which means the film must be developed, then the plates made. ‘Direct to plate’ is becoming more acceptable, but the use of plastic, polyester or aluminium is still required, and the plates must still be chemically processed. In addition to developing and washing the film and plates, chemicals, film and plates must be disposed of. It is a dirty, wasteful process and is an excellent incentive for the environmentally aware customer to choose digital printing wherever possible.
Conventional presses must be cleaned with toxic solvents. Such cleaning solutions must be disposed of in a responsible manner, but this is sometime difficult to do.
Digital presses are energy efficient, using only modest amounts of energy.
Conventional presses are high consumers of energy. The whole process of plate making consumes energy, and in the case of aluminium plates, great amounts of energy.
The presses themselves are often huge beasts weighing many tonnes, with massive inertia to overcome to start them rolling.
Conventionally printed material comes off the press wet, and nothing can be done with it until it is dry. Therefore most presses employ an inline drying process which is a huge consumer of energy.
We have produced a white paper on the subject of environmentally friendly printing. Click here to download a PDF version, or click here to view the paper on-line.