Songhong Paper
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About Green Printing
Do you have a comprehensive understanding of green printing? Green printing refers to the use of environmentally friendly materials and processes, minimizing pollution during the printing process, conserving resources and energy, facilitating the recycling and disposal of printed materials after use, promoting natural degradation, and reducing ecological impact. Green printing emphasizes environmental coordination, encompassing the use of eco-friendly printing materials, clean production processes, user safety of printed materials, and the recyclability of printed products. In other words, printed materials must meet environmental requirements throughout their lifecycle, from raw material selection to production, usage, and recycling.
### 01. Characteristics of Green Printing
The three main characteristics of green printing are reduction and moderation, non-toxicity and harmlessness, and pollution-free processes.
- **Reduction and Moderation**: This involves using the minimum amount of materials and simplifying processes while still fulfilling functions such as information identification, protection, convenience, and sales promotion.
- **Non-Toxic and Harmless**: Printed materials should not contain toxic substances or should control the content of toxic substances below relevant standards.
- **Pollution-Free**: Throughout the entire lifecycle of printed products-from raw material collection, material processing, manufacturing, usage, waste recycling, and final disposal-there should be no environmental pollution or public hazards.
### 02. Requirements for Raw and Auxiliary Materials in Green Printing
Green printing imposes specific requirements on raw and auxiliary materials:
- Glazing oil must be water-based or UV-curable.
- Powder spraying must use plant-based powders.
- Instant film coating adhesives must be water-based.
- Printing inks, polishing oils, rubber cloths, and adhesives must not contain six types of phthalates.
- Paper brightness for green printing must comply with GB/T24999 standards; for primary and secondary school textbooks, it must meet GB/T18359 standards.
- The limit for para-cyclohexanone in green printing products is ≤1.0 mg/㎡.
- Green printing establishes limits for 24 types of toxic and harmful substances in printed materials, including eight soluble elements and 16 volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
- Alcohol content in printing liquids used during production activities must be less than 5%.
- Xylene levels in lithographic products must not exceed 0.25 mg/㎡.
- Recycled paper is produced through a complex process involving breaking down waste paper, removing colorants, and pulping.
### 03. The Connotation of Green Printing
The purpose of green printing encompasses two core principles: "environmental friendliness" and "health benefits." It emphasizes balancing the survival and development of future generations with the needs of the current generation, aligning short-term corporate interests with long-term national goals, and ensuring that environmental benefits align with economic benefits to achieve a win-win outcome between environmental protection and the market economy.
Green printing reflects the concepts of sustainable development, people-oriented approaches, advanced science and technology, and serves as an important means to achieve energy conservation, emission reduction, and a low-carbon economy. The green printing industry chain includes eco-friendly printing materials, graphic design, green plate-making technologies, green printing techniques, green post-press processing technologies, environmentally friendly printing equipment, and the recycling of print waste. Through the implementation of green printing, the entire supply chain system, including materials, processing, application, and consumption, can enter a virtuous cycle.
### 04. Green Printing Certification
Green printing certification is a critical method for implementing green printing. Based on the principles of voluntariness, openness, fairness, and impartiality, green printing certification for enterprises is an internationally recognized practice.
The green environmental logo consists of green mountains, green waters, the sun, and ten surrounding rings. Products certified under the green environmental mark must meet quality standards and ensure that "three wastes" emissions comply with national or local discharge standards ("three wastes" refer to wastewater, exhaust gas, and noise). A printing enterprise with a green environmental label indicates that it has reached the advanced level of environmental protection stipulated by current national standards and is a trustworthy producer of printing products. Products bearing an environmental label signify compliance with specific environmental protection requirements during production, usage, and disposal, offering advantages such as low toxicity, minimal harm, and resource conservation compared to similar products.
### 05. How Can Indian Companies Achieve Green Printing?
Indian companies can achieve green printing through three key aspects: selecting more environmentally friendly materials, conserving energy and reducing emissions during production, and ensuring product healthiness.
- **Environmentally Friendly Materials**: Use sustainable forest-certified paper (to protect nature), natural paper (for better eyesight), recycled paper (for recycling), eco-friendly inks, and adhesives.
- **Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction**: Save electricity and water, recycle waste heat, and professionally treat pollutants during printing production.
- **Environmental Testing Standards**: Ensure compliance with the 24 environmental testing indicators outlined in the national standard HJ2503-2011, which prioritizes human health.
### 06. VOCs Emission Treatment
VOCs (volatile organic compounds) are common atmospheric pollutants in the printing industry. To reduce VOCs emissions, printing companies can adopt the following measures:
- Replace gasoline with non-volatile or low-volatile, high-boiling-point cleaning agents for cleaning printing plates and rubber sheets.
- Implement centralized ink supply systems to reduce VOCs emissions and minimize potential waste caused by manual inking.
- Use pre-coated films to eliminate diluent usage, avoiding pollutants and significantly reducing VOCs emissions.
- Opt for water-based inks instead of solvent-based inks, as they use water rather than organic solvents, significantly reducing VOCs emissions.
Current VOCs treatment technologies include combustion treatment, membrane separation, condensation, biological treatment, absorption (adsorption), plasma technology, photocatalytic degradation, and others.