Whatever happened to saving the world? At the end of the 1980s, the concept of global warming suddenly hit the headlines and recycled loo paper, tins of dolphin friendly tuna and ozone friendly aerosols became the norm almost overnight. Lead was banned from petrol and road-building plans began to be shelved.
It took the printing industry some time to catch up, but gradually old prejudices against recycled paper were challenged and are now the exception rather than the rule.
Print buyers, often under pressure from consumers, began asking more and more questions about whether their orders could be printed on recycled or chlorine-free paper, and perhaps more importantly, how the use of pressroom chemicals could be reduced.
A small but influential group of printers, including screen printer Bovince and The Beacon Press in Sussex, quickly realised that there was a profitable niche to be occupied and have reaped the rewards and awards-ever since.
There still seems to be a lot of sensitivity about the environmental aspects of magazine printing, and of course there is a hard core of print buyers - environmental charities and much of the public sector - who will always want to buy green.
But in many other respects the rise of environmental concern witnessed in the early and mid 1990s seems to have gone into decline more recently. While printers have to comply with ever tightening environmental rules, printer after printer told Printing World that print buyers now seem to be almost solely motivated by cost, not ecological factors. Oddly, the 1990s fad for recycled papers that look and feel like recycled papers appears to have fizzled out, with clear, snow white papers now preferred.
And many fear this is a permanent change of attitudes, not a temporary belt tightening linked to the slowdown in the economy.
Take Abba Litho Sales of Bow, east London, which used to specialise in vegetable-based inks on recycled paper and at one time had 40% of its sales from just one customer, the Body Shop.
Managing director Steve Harrington says that the Body Shop is now much more price conscious in its print buying since the departure of founder Anita Roddick and the arrival of new management. The Body Shop now only accounts for a tiny fraction of its sales.
And most of Abba’s other customers seem to be attaching lower priority to environmental considerations. “That attraction no longer seems to be there,” says Mr Harrington. “Buyers might still use vegetable-based inks but when its comes to paper, so many clients insist on a white shade. I like to think it’s a temporary problem but nowadays everyone is looking at price. It’s not just the print buyers - everyone is having to be so competitive as there just aren’t any margins left.”
Recycled paper is only slightly more expensive than other papers these days, and soyabased inks cost 30% more, malting only a marginal difference on small jobs. But even if green printers do specify recycled paper, it can be difficult to find the materials needed.
For example, the Sylvencote range of 85% recycled papers from St Regis was withdrawn years ago. Hardly any recycled papers are available at weights above 250gsm these days, and the Cyclus range of 100% recycled paper is hampered by very low demand, says Mr Harrington, who adds that demand for recycled paper peaked back in the mid-1990s and has been in decline ever since. Only 5% of his company’s £2.8m annual sales now come from printing on recycled grades, he estimates.
Mr Harrington also complains that Gibbon Inks charges the company £400 a month to take back empty ink tins for recycling. Far from encouraging recycling, many suppliers seem to be content with meeting their legal requirements and penalising those printers that wish to go beyond them.
This bleak picture is echoed elsewhere. “People don’t give a hoot about the environment any more,” says one southeast printer with a reputation for green printing -a reputation that compelled him to seek to remain anonymous. “They only seem to care about where the buck stops. Even environmental groups just want their print as cheap as they can get it nowadays.”
And where buyers do insist on strict environmental standards, there are many bureaucratic obstacles facing printers who wish to gain accreditation. Some companies decide the process is more trouble than it is worth.
While a large book printer like TJ International (which won the BPIF's environment awards last year) does not regret getting ISO 14001 accreditation back in 1999, pointing out that it has become easier to recruit and retain good staff and sales and profits have both risen year on year since then, most smaller printers are not so keen.
One printer contacted by Printing World - who also asked to remain anonymous - said his company had abandoned its attempt to gain ISO accreditation as it carried with it a price tag of about £20,000.
The BPIF has launched its own seven-step environmental accreditation scheme to offer printers some recognition for their standards without having to go the whole hog and invest in complete renewal of its pressroom equipment. The EAS is currently being promoted to magazine printers - whose customers and readers are perhaps more environmentally conscious than most - and will roll it out further to small printers later this year.
So far seven magazine printers have signed up - including Garnett Dickinson in Rotherham, Southernprint in Poole, Frank Peters in Kendal, and Grapholine in Nelson - and two publishers, BBC Worldwide and the Economist Group, have agreed that they will only use EAS certified printers to print their titles.
“Printers are increasingly being asked to show environmental accreditation at the tendering stage, or by their insurance customers to show they've reduced the risk of causing pollution,” says health and safety and environment adviser Dale Wallis. “In the past, they would have only said they were on their way to ISO 14001, which doesn’t mean anything. The EAS shows them where they are.”
Other problems for printers are pragmatic, and can be exacerbated by the fact that what most concerns print buyers is not necessarily the most pressing environmental problem. Printing still accounts for about 20% of all the UK’s volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, partly because it is so difficult (though not impossible) to eliminate use of isopropyl alcohol and other solvents from the printing process.
Kent Art Printers in Chatham has managed to be completely ‘alcohol free’ for the last 11 years, but despite the assistance of its supplier Varn International, has not found it easy.
“Not using alcohol in the pressroom means neither more nor less cost, but it has been incredibly difficult,” says works manager David Witherden. “And it has given us a competitive edge among those who know what they’re taking about.”
Overall, says Mr Witherden, demand for environmentally friendly printing is still growing, but only slowly. “We have picked up a few jobs since we got ISO 14001, but to be honest I’m disappointed there isn’t more concern about the environment out there.”
Controlling VOC use is probably the biggest environmental challenge the industry faces, yet pressroom chemistry is of far less concern to most print buyers than whether recycled paper is used. However, many printers say that the amount of water used in the de-inking process means the environmental benefit of recycled paper is dubious, and perhaps sourcing paper from sustainable forests where trees are replanted is more important.
And recycling can often be made very difficult by binding adhesives, coatings and varnish on the paper. Given the fast turnaround expected as the norm nowadays, use of spray powder - made of normally harmless starch but harmful to pressroom staff if inhaled in large quantities - is indispensable unless a job is being uv coated.
Weko, the main supplier of spray powder units, says its new AP range means that powder consumption can be cut by 50% and that using its equipment a teaspoon of powder is enough to cover a football pitch. But in spray powder, as with many other things, it is difficult to eliminate its use entirely.
Some say the UK industry could learn a lot from Switzerland and the US where, perhaps oddly in the case of the Americans, print buyers seem a lot more choosy about environmental issues.
Part of this may be because printers in North America are better at marketing themselves and educating print buyers that environmental best practice can also be economic good practice.
Across the US and Canada there are several regional schemes whereby printers have clubbed together and agreed to meet environmental standards which go beyond statutory targets.
The Atlantic Green Printers Project in Canada, for example, has two stated objectives: to promote environmental sustainability and the profitability of the firms who sign up.
In Minneapolis and St Paul, a Twin Cities Green Guide offers advice to print buyers to opt not just for recycled papers, but TCF bleach and uncoated papers when buying their print.
Uv varnish is also advised against as it makes paper more difficult to recycle. With bindings, buyers are advised to avoid non-soluble hotmelt glue and saddlestitching, or at least only specify one staple in the binding, not two or more: a rare example of printers advising buyers to order less, not more.
But schemes such as these, or the BPIF's environmental accreditation scheme, will only work if print buyers still seem to be interested in buying green. And for some printers at least, this interest seems to be waning.