| Topics: Environment Printing Trades Collaborate to Reduce Toxics Design for Environment Printing Project: Printing Trades Collaborate
to Reduce Toxics. The Design for Environment Printing Project is a voluntary, cooperative effort between the printing industry and the EPA to build the capacity of printers themselves to make responsible and informed choices about how best to protect the environment of their communities and the health of their workers. Working collaboratively with EPA staff, printers have identified priorities, volunteered resources, tested new methods, and communicated cost- effective alternatives throughout the industry. They are thus making it easier, especially for smaller shops, to be environmentally responsible without putting themselves out of business or their workers out of jobs. Story and case study plus. Contents Story: Printing Trades Collaborate to Reduce Toxics
Case Study Plus: Design for Environment Catalyzes Partnerships to Reduce Toxics in Printing Trades Story: Printing Trades Collaborate to Reduce Toxics Story prepared by Henry Topper and Carmen Sirianni, CPN editors. The Design for Environment Printing Project is a voluntary, cooperative effort between the printing industry and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to build the capacity of printers themselves to make responsible and informed choices about how best to protect the environment of their communities and the health of their workers. The adversarial strategy leaves printers simply reacting to the latest environmental regulations, and is ineffective in addressing what is probably the industry's biggest negative impact on the environment, namely, the combined effect of the many small printers in an area. The cooperative approach is designed to put them ahead of the regulatory curve, and to provide the information and social networks needed to make continuous improvements that are both responsible and cost effective. Printers themselves identified a chemical application, blanket washing, that they felt presented serious concerns in the workplace and the environment. Volunteers joined a coordinating group with EPA staff from the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, and began to mobilize their own assets to develop and test alternatives, and to communicate this information throughout the industry. Almost all sectors of the industry have made contributions. Suppliers have donated their products for comparative evaluation, and shops volunteered to use alternative blanket washes, and to carefully record their experiences with the help of a consultant. Staff from the printing trade associations, both national and local, are actively involved, and the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation is performing lab tests and screening alternative blanket washes. Printers around the country have met in focus groups to give advice on the direction of the project, and to define how best to communicate the results to printers. EPA staff are helping with the technical review and other aspects of the project, and will develop with the printers the kind of information on comparative risks, exposures, performance, and the costs of alternatives that will permit informed and responsible choices by printers themselves. And the trade press has agreed to publicize the results to printers across the nation. This approach treats printers not as potential lawbreakers in need of tutoring and regulation from above. It treats them with the dignity of citizens capable of collaborating with each other and with government in defining a responsible environmental agenda, and carrying it out with the assets that they themselves can mobilize: their knowledge and skill as workers and managers, their commitments to a sustainable environment in their communities, and to their own health and well being. The process builds trust, and the networks capable of continuous learning and improvement as they move to define further areas of environmental concern. And the cooperative effort to produce essential environmental information levels the playing field in the industry by making information available to printshops of all sizes, and thus allows small shops to remain competitive while making more environmentally sound choices. More information Henry Topper
Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics
Washington, DC 20460
Phone: 202-260-6750
fax: 202-260-2219 Stu McMichael
Custom Print
703-979-6670. Marci Kinter
Environmental Affairs Officer
Screen Printers Association International
703-359-1314. Case Study Plus: Design for Environment Catalyzes Partnerships to Reduce Toxics in Printing Trades Case study provided by Henry Topper, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics. Henry Topper is also on the CPN Environment editorial team. 1) Chemical Alternatives for Screen Reclamation The Design for the Environment (DfE) Screen Printing Project is a unique, cooperative effort between the screen printing industry and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dedicated to helping screen printers improve their efforts to protect the environment. Improving environmental performance means using new procedures, products, and equipment to do the same job with less hazard to both workers and the environment. Industry participants in the DfE Screen Printing Project stress that understanding the possible environmental benefits of alternative products should be an early step in evaluating any changes to current work practices. One goal of the project is to provide printers with chemical risk and pollution prevention information, along with performance and cost information, so that they are better equipped to incorporate environmental concerns into day-to-day business decisions. Printers, EPA, product manufacturers, and the screen printing trade association are all concerned with minimizing the environmental and health hazards of screen reclamation chemicals currently used in printing shops. In response to these concerns, the DfE Screen Printing Project worked with printers and selected the screen reclamation process as the project's focus. Through DfE, these groups worked together to evaluate alternative screen reclamation products. A total of eleven alternative chemical "systems" were evaluated. Most "systems" included an ink remover, an emulsion remover, and a haze remover. This is the third in a series of case studies developed by EPA to illustrate how industry and the EPA can work together to investigate ways to improve environmental performance in the screen printing industry. Specifically, this case study is geared towards getting information to small- or medium-sized printers like you. As you think about changing to environmentally improved products in your shop, these case studies can help you sort through some of the different factors that can make one product a more attractive substitute than another. This case study highlights one of the alternative systems demonstrated in the DfE project, describing: - Performance evaluations of the alternative system from laboratory tests and from two volunteer printing facilities;
- The health and environmental risks of the alternative system compared to a traditional screen reclamation system;
- The cost of the alternative system compared to the cost of a traditional system.
Background Initiated by industry, this project was entirely voluntary and involved almost all sectors of the screen printing industry: manufacturers donated their products for evaluation, staff from Screenprinting and Graphic Imaging Association International (SGIA) coordinated the field demonstrations, the Screen Printing Technical Foundation (SPTF) performed initial product testing, printers nationwide evaluated the products in their facilities, and EPA staff conducted the risk assessment of the products. One advantage of this coordinated effort is that all product systems were evaluated using the same methods. The consistency of the evaluations allows you to compare the results to determine which of the alternatives may be a viable substitute for your current reclamation products. This case study highlights one alternative system, referred to as Alternative System "Epsilon." This system, as with all systems demonstrated in this project, is a real, commercially available screen reclamation system; however, "Epsilon" is a masked name. The actual trade name for this alternative system (or for any of the alternative systems demonstrated) is not used in this case study or in the final project report. Trade names were masked for several reasons: - One of the goals of the DfE project is to illustrate the process of searching for and evaluating cleaner alternatives. DfE hopes to encourage you to incorporate environmental concerns in your facility's decision-making processes and into your discussions with suppliers. By masking trade names, DfE encourages you to discuss the characteristics of the products you use, or are considering using, with your suppliers. This case study and the DfE project help you to know what characteristics to look for in the screen reclamation products you purchase.
- Since every screen printing shop is different, manufacturers recognize that their product's performance may vary greatly depending on both the operating conditions and the varying opinions of the different printers using the products. In order to get their full cooperation before the results were available, some manufacturers asked that the product names be masked.
To compare the cost and risk of Alternative System Epsilon to a known system, a baseline was established using a traditional solvent-based screen reclamation system. The traditional system used in the comparison consists of lacquer thinner as the ink remover, a sodium periodate solution as the emulsion remover, and a xylene/acetone/mineral spirits/cyclohexanone blend as the haze remover. These chemicals were selected because screen printers indicated they were commonly used in screen reclamation. In both the cost and risk comparisons, it was assumed that these chemicals were applied manually to 6 screens per day, each 2,127 in2 (approximately 15 ft2) in size. Promising Performance Performance was evaluated in two phases: 1. performance demonstrations at SPTF's laboratory evaluated the products under controlled conditions; and 2. field demonstrations at volunteer printers' facilities provided performance information under the variable conditions of production. Since conditions vary greatly, printers felt it would be most valuable to evaluate performance based on the experiences and opinions of the experts: the people who used the alternative products in their facilities during the month-long demonstrations. Each product system was demonstrated in two or three facilities to get a more complete evaluation of performance under a variety of operating conditions. Laboratory Testing During laboratory testing, three imaged screens were reclaimed using Alternative System Epsilon: one that had been inked with a solvent-based ink, the second with an ultraviolet-curable (UV) ink, and the third with a water-based ink. Following the ink application, screens were allowed to dry for 15 minutes to simulate a shop situation. After drying, the ink remover was applied according to the manufacturer's instructions. Again the screen was allowed to sit, this time for 24 hours, before applying the emulsion and haze removers. In the lab, the Epsilon ink remover dissolved the ink quickly, was easy to use, and rinsed clean of residue on the screens with solvent-based ink and UV-curable ink. In both cases, a light to moderate ink stain remained on the screen. When the ink remover was used on the screen with water-based ink, more time and effort were needed, but the ink was removed except for a light stain. On all three screens, the emulsion remover dissolved the stencil and there was no emulsion residue on any of the screens after pressure rinsing. In the final step, the Alternative System Epsilon haze remover lightened the ink stains on all three screens. On-site Demonstrations Two different facilities used System Epsilon for a month to evaluate how well it performed in a production situation. The participating facilities recorded the amount of product used, the length of time needed, and their opinion of how well the product reclaimed the screen. Both facilities (referred to in this case study as Facility A and Facility B) found the product system worked well, especially the emulsion remover. - Ink Remover Performance: At Facility A, the ink remover worked well, although some of the workers who used it thought that it acted more slowly and required more effort on catalyzed inks than on other solvent-based inks. At Facility B, the ink remover removed both UV-curable and solvent-based inks efficiently , but the UV-curable ink was slightly easier to clean than the solvent-based ink. In addition, Facility B found they used significantly less alternative ink remover per screen than their standard product, which was lacquer thinner. Emulsion Remover Performance: The emulsion remover worked well at both facilities, dissolving the stencil quickly and easily.
- Haze Remover Performance: Both facilities evaluated the haze remover performance as "acceptable," and similar in efficacy to their standard haze removers.
Overall Evaluation: The performance of Alternative System Epsilon was similar at both facilities, according to the printers' evaluations. Because the two facilities have very different operations, the fact that System Epsilon performed well at both plants demonstrates that this system can work well under a variety of operating conditions. Facility A prints banners and point-of-purchase displays on plastic using a variety of solvent-based inks, a dual cure emulsion, and mesh counts of 83 - 280 threads/inch. Facility B prints vinyl and mylar labels using both solvent-based and UV-curable inks. They use a direct photo stencil and screens with a mesh count of 355 threads/inch. Even with these differences, Alternative System Epsilon was successful in reclaiming screens at both facilities. The final proof for the participating printers was that all the reclaimed screens could be reused for future print jobs. Reduced Risk Environmental releases and occupational risks associated with using Alternative System Epsilon for screen reclamation were evaluated. See the table for a detailed description of the health risks of both Alternative System Epsilon and the traditional system. Whether using traditional screen reclamation chemicals or an alternative system, chemicals can get into your body either through your skin when you contact the product or through your lungs when you breathe in the chemical vapors. Some chemicals have a lower tendency to evaporate or to enter the body through the skin; and different chemicals have different effects, some more harmful than others, once in your body. The risks associated with inhaling the chemicals in Alternative System Epsilon are much lower than those of the traditional system. With the traditional system, daily inhalation of toluene and methyl ethyl ketone in the ink remover, as well as acetone in the haze remover could lead to harmful health effects, because they evaporate readily. Applying either the Alternative System Epsilon or the traditional system products regularly without wearing gloves can be harmful to your health. These harmful effects through skin contact are attributed to chemicals in the alternative ink remover and emulsion remover, as well as to chemicals in all the products of the traditional system (ink remover, emulsion remover, and haze remover). If you wear gloves regularly, however, these risks are negligible. Minimal Environmental Releases Based on the EPA assessment, none of the chemicals in either the traditional system or Alternative System Epsilon were found to be hazardous to the environment in the quantities used for screen reclamation, even when considering the combined releases to water from several printers in one area. Air releases from facilities using traditional or alterative chemicals were also evaluated for their effects on the general population and were found to have no significant impact. Cost Savings The demonstrations showed that both of the participating facilities could reduce their costs for screen reclamation by switching from the traditional system to Alternative System Epsilon. As with the risk comparisons, costs of Alternative System Epsilon were compared to the costs of using the traditional system. The cost estimate for each reclamation system included labor time spent to reclaim the screen, the cost of an average quantity of reclamation products, and the cost of hazardous waste disposal for RCRA-listed chemicals. For Facility A, their reclamation cost per screen would drop from $6.27/screen to $3.08/screen. This would lead to annual savings of $4,775. At Facility B, the reclamation cost of $6.27/screen using the traditional system would decrease to $5.29/screen for the alternative system. Over a year, the savings would amount to $1,469. The difference in costs between the facilities is due to differences in the quantity of product used and the labor time required per screen as recorded by the employees. The Design for the Environment Approach The EPA's Design for the Environment Program encourages you to systematically evaluate your facility's technologies, practices, and procedures and how they might affect your employees' health and the environment. Our goal in working with screen printers is to help you to make more informed choices, now and in the future, by catalyzing the search for and evaluation of cleaner alternatives. With this case study and others like it, we hope to illustrate the application of this goal and the pursuit of continuous environmental improvements. Although the alternative system described in this case study proved to be a viable alternative in the two printing facilities where performance demonstrations were conducted, it may not be the solution for all types of screen printing operations. If you find that Alternative System Epsilon does not seem like a feasible substitute for your facility, refer to the summary of the project's full technical report, called the Cleaner Technologies Substitutes Assessment (CTSA), which includes information on all the alternative product systems and alternative technologies evaluated. When you identify a product system that seems like a possible substitute for your facility, contact your supplier to discuss the characteristics of the products you are looking for. To obtain other case studies or a summary of the Screen Printing CTSA, contact: U.S. EPA
National Center for Environmental Publications and Information (NCEPI)
P.O. Box 42419
Cincinnati, OH 45242-2419
Fax: 513-891-6685
For trade association information, contact: Screenprinting and Graphic Imaging Association International
10015 Main Street
Fairfax, VA 22031
Phone: 703-385-1335
For more information about EPA's Design for the Environment Program contact: Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse (PPIC)
U.S. EPA
410 M Street, SW (3404)
Washington, DC 20460
Phone: 202-260-1023
FAX: 202-260-0178 Back to Environment Index | 
