Costs and benefits of the most environmentally fri

The cost and benefit of environmental protection printing

the waste liquid mixed with paper wool and ink is directly discharged into the sewer pipe, and the black liquid makes people sick. Although the printing industry is classified as an urban industry with low pollution and low consumption in many places, an industry elder recalled what he saw in a printing enterprise a few years ago, and the shocking scene still made him sigh

even today, with the increasing pressure of public opinion, frequent regulatory policies, and growing calls for green environmental protection, the overall environmental protection level of printing enterprises has not been significantly improved. A senior person said with great certainty that it is no exaggeration to say that 80% or 90% of printing enterprises have not done so in the treatment of pollutants. The environmental pollution caused by printing, measured by low-carbon standards, in addition to tangible and visible emissions, also widely exists in the production process, such as various solvent residues, volatile organic compounds, and even high power consumption. Frankly speaking, enterprises are unable to change this fact (the generation of pollution), but at least they are able to reduce the manufacturing of pollutants. The person also pointed out

objectively speaking, there are a number of enterprises in the printing industry that strictly abide by their civic duties. They act consciously and strive to minimize the adverse impact of enterprise production on the environment. However, more enterprises are 1 Shorten the service life: electrostatic adsorption dust still stays in the preheating period of environmental protection printing where words speak louder than deeds. The reason is nothing more than money. Survival is the first essence of enterprise development, which is obviously a more realistic appeal in the eyes of printing enterprises deeply trapped in the vortex of low profits. At present, most of the calls for environmental protection printing inside and outside the industry focus on regulatory coercion or moral influence, but for enterprises, if environmental protection is a loss making business with only input but no output, its action force can be imagined

it can't be said that the first challenge of environmental protection printing and morality is the test of interests. If the cost invested by enterprises for environmental protection cannot obtain corresponding benefits, such good deeds are doomed to be unsustainable

according to the cooperation agreement, the two departments will jointly set up a leading group for the implementation of the green printing strategy, formulate and publish standards for printing environmental signs, give priority to the green printing of primary and secondary school textbooks, gradually promote the printing of government purchased products, food and drug packaging printing and other fields, and strengthen the policy support for printing enterprises to implement green printing. The preliminary pilot has been launched. In early June this year, the General Administration of publication organized seven publishing units and more than 10 printing enterprises in Shanghai and Beijing to carry out the pilot of green printing of primary and secondary school textbooks in autumn 2010. A total of more than 14 million copies of 100 kinds of green textbooks were printed, covering more than 20 provinces, districts and cities. According to the official explanation, green textbooks require publishers to use paper products, inks, environmental friendly adhesives and other raw and auxiliary materials certified by environmental labels in the process of printing textbooks. The general administration plans that from next year, green printed books used by students will be labeled with green labels that have passed environmental certification, and it will take three years for primary and secondary school students to use green textbooks

the General Administration of publication has set the first node for the promotion of environmental protection printing in three years, and the first step to achieve this goal is for the General Administration of publication and the Ministry of environmental protection to jointly formulate the "printing of technical requirements for environmental labeling products" standard. This technical requirement, which was launched in August 2009 and prepared by the China Printing Technology Association and the environmental development center of the Ministry of environmental protection, is considered to be China's first national environmental protection printing standard, and undertakes the mission of implementing energy conservation, emission reduction and sustainable development in China's printing industry. According to the official statement, "Printing of technical requirements for environmental labeling products" is the authoritative standard to measure green printing and the basis for the implementation of green procurement of printing materials. Enterprises certified by this standard will obtain the China green certification mark

according to the plan, the standard of printing environmental signs will be recommended in two phases, the first phase includes lithography, gravure printing and commercial paper printing; The second phase covers printing, letterpress printing and digital printing. It is reported that the publicity period of the draft lithographic environmental labeling standard, one of the first phase standards, has ended recently. The relevant parties plan to convene an expert meeting before the end of October to summarize and analyze the collected opinions, and it will definitely be officially introduced within the year. According to insiders, the formulation of the other two drafts of gravure printing and commercial paper printing has also been basically completed, and are being revised and improved, It is expected to be officially launched next year. As for the second phase standard, it may be three years later

the risk of cost

although the "printing of technical requirements for environmental labeling products (Part I: lithography)" has not been officially introduced, the attention of the industry continues to rise. Many enterprises have asked us to investigate and guide. Before and after the National Day holiday, Liu Yiyong, director of the green printing promotion and Management Office of the printing industry in China (hereinafter referred to as the green office), the standard compilation organization, has been nonstop to several places. He is relieved by the positive response and enthusiastic participation of enterprises, including printing enterprises, some raw and auxiliary material manufacturers, and many of them we were not familiar with, I don't usually show up in the industry

compared with the enthusiasm of the former, some enterprises showed a trace of anxiety about the upcoming standards. Their concern is whether enterprises will pay huge technological transformation costs once the standard is branded as mandatory. For the concerns of enterprises, an expert who participated in the formulation of the standard said that the original intention of formulating the printing environmental label standard was to popularize environmental protection printing, so that the environmental protection construction of enterprises can be based on. Therefore, its index formulation fully considered the affordability of domestic enterprises, and the threshold was lower than the European and American environmental protection standards commonly adopted by export enterprises. For example, for the residue detection of printed products of books and periodicals, according to the European and American environmental protection standards, we need to detect 8 indicators, but we only have 4. In his view, for some printing enterprises, the use of raw materials should be the most difficult to implement the standards and play the role of success or failure. It's OK to say that paper, ink and adhesive have strict requirements such as FSC certification and whiteness limit, but auxiliary materials such as reductant and fountain solution rarely meet environmental protection requirements, and exceeding the standard is common

in the process of research, experts from the green office found that Guangdong Province, especially the export printing enterprises, has always attached importance to environmental protection because of their active source composition. For them, the threshold of standards is not high, and there is no need to invest too much in standards; Many enterprises in the mainland, although they are not strong in environmental protection awareness, can also meet the standards after being guided and necessary transformation; The most difficult to reach the standard are some small enterprises, many of which do not even have basic measures. The concern of enterprises about the implementation cost of environmental protection printing is not groundless. In the pilot of green printing of primary and secondary school textbooks in the autumn of 2010 carried out by the General Administration of publication, a groundbreaking move was widely publicized by the media, and a small number of pilot textbooks were printed by flexographic printing machines. Although the printing volume of 13000 copies is insignificant compared with the total printing volume of 14million copies, it is a major breakthrough in terms of printing methods. Among the four mainstream printing methods of offset printing, gravure printing, flexo printing and printing, flexo printing is recognized as a model of environmental protection printing due to the use of water-based ink. When receiving this task, the time was very urgent, and there was only one month left. As there is no special flexographic printing equipment suitable for books and periodicals in the market, we can only print on the narrow flexographic machine first, cut into single sheets, and then fold and bind. Gongrenxiu, chairman of the flexographic printing branch of the China Printing Technology Association, recalled. Time is tight, the task is heavy, and unprecedented, all enterprises involved in printing can only explore and improve while experimenting, until they come up with finished products with the same effect as offset printing. Finally, the quality inspection report issued by Shanghai quality inspection center put a successful end to everyone's efforts: the VOC content of this flexographic water-based ink is almost zero, basically free of volatile gases; The content of heavy metals is much lower than that of soybean ink and ordinary offset printing ink. This test has once again verified the quality and environmental protection effect of flexo printing, and the results have been recognized by the relevant parties. Gongrencouple is very happy

however, behind the good environmental protection effect is the high cost. It is reported that taking plate making as an example, the plate making cost of flexographic printing is about 8 times that of offset printing, which means that short edition work will be very uneconomical for printing enterprises. In addition, once the purchase of environmental protection raw materials becomes a regular expenditure of enterprises, the cost is also expensive. According to a large-scale book printing enterprise in Beijing, the company spends more than one million yuan more on the purchase of environmental protection raw materials every year than normal purchase. These raw materials mainly include ink, water-based film, fountain solution, etc

however, compared with the increased production costs of using environmentally friendly printing processes and materials, the real money invested by enterprises in energy conservation and emission reduction seems to be more considerable. In July, 2007, in response to the yc207 "limit of volatile organic compounds in cigarette strips and box packaging paper" standard to be issued next year, Kecai Printing Co., Ltd. invested to establish a gas phase analysis room to control the content of volatile organic compounds in various raw and auxiliary materials required for production. At the initial stage of the establishment of the laboratory, the equipment investment alone was several million yuan, and then hundreds of thousands of yuan of routine investment was required every year, A considerable part of it is used for the purchase of experimental consumables. Zhonghua business took an earlier step. Since 1997, it has invested a total of HK $30million to install a secondary combustion device for its shanglun drying furnace, so as to reduce the emission of phenol harmful gases generated by the combustion of petroleum gas and meet the European emission standards

confusion of income

high environmental protection costs and expensive environmental protection investment are not only the concerns of flexo textbook participants, but also the difficulties that all textbook printing enterprises have to face. Paper is purchased by publishing houses. For printing plants, the cost will not be too high, mainly ink. There is observer analysis. In order to solve the ink solvent residue, the main pollution source in printing production, some teaching material printing enterprises participating in the pilot use soybean ink instead of ordinary ink. After some accounting, it is found that the printing cost has increased by 20% - 30%

for book printing enterprises with an average profit margin of less than 5%, the consequences of a substantial cost increase of 20% - 30% can be imagined. Due to the dilemma of enterprises, more than one respondent called on the government to support or subsidize printing plants since it wants to promote environmental protection teaching materials. This part of the cost of using environmental protection raw materials should not be borne by printing enterprises. Some respondents even said frankly that if the economic problem is not solved, it can only become a good wish to achieve the goal of green printing of primary and secondary school textbooks within three years. No one is willing to do business at a loss

if the textbook printing enterprises can still expect the government to pay and absorb the cost of environmental protection, many