Going green with printing solutions

These days doing activities associated with reducing the risk of global warming similarly activities concerned with the printing are also demanding more attention towards the efforts concerned with green activities. It is always essential to remember that printing activities can be made green with the usage of soy inks that are environmentally responsible and are quite hygienic as it does not provide any effects that harm the environment. The only answer that has arrived towards the process of environmentally friendly printing solutions is the usage of soy inks; however this is not the only answer to the entire problem of environmental pollution.

The printers who have been concentrating towards this effort of reducing the environmental pollution have been working on the process of removing the dangerous chemicals in their press rooms for years together. The inks and the solutions which are used today have eliminated the usage of the chemicals like lead, chromium, silver and they are working hard today to reduce the harmful volatile organic content. The process is also under the close check to monitor and reduce the waste streams. All these efforts are very much important for the fact whether or not they are involved in the usage of soy inks.

Why has printing with soy ink become very important

Soy oil based inks became very much popular several years ago when they were used as a replacement for petrochemicals oils, they are a popular crop grown by the farmers widely available in capacity. Soy based inks were used as a replacement for the petroleum oils. This issue has gained popularity as it addresses the various environmental issues and they have even reduced the dependence on petrochemical based inks, they have even reduced the dependence on the foreign based products. Other home based products which are used in the preparation of inks are cottonseed, vernonia, sunflower, tung, linseed and canola.

The printing inks used these days are used in different classes:

Sheet fed ink which is dried by the process of oxidation or polymerization
Newspaper inks which are dried by the process of absorption and oxidation.
Heat set inks which are dried by the different actions of heat.

The American Soybean association has remained very instrumental in the late 1980’s in promoting the usage of soy oils in the printing inks. They have also established the minimum percentages of the usage of the soy oils so as to use the soy seal which could be used on the printing base. The minimum levels of the printing inks have been displayed in the following ways like:

30% of colored new inks
20% of business forms inks
40 %of black news inks
20% for sheet fed inks
7% for heat set inks

The heat set ink manufacturers these days are substituted by the soy oil today instead of the linseed oil. It is important to understand that the ink manufacturers these days are replacing one vegetable oil for another.