Rob van den Braak
We have been much occupied of late with a project to ensure that printed matter can be effectively recycled. It has to be said that standards work, and this work in particular, can be tedious beyond words. Other so very much more tempting options beckon. There’s the temptation to straighten ones speaker wires or rearrange the cutlery draw in age order, to name but two. It requires a will of iron to resist such urges.
We are not alone in working on documents that are an aid to recycling, though we may be alone in finding this work so deeply uncompelling. The only hope is that awareness of the value of recycling is rising around the world, not least because one man’s (or woman’s) waste is another man’s (or woman’s), raw material. Within printing we have all manner of juicy controversy surrounding the deinkability of digitally printed matter which influences its recyclability. This basically comes down to the fact that if the print isn’t deinked using modern deinking technology, it might pollute the pulp used to create new papers. Obviously this is not good, but isn’t reluctance to invest in modern deinking technologies worse? The problem persists elsewhere, with other industries facing equivalent problems, which is where ISO/TR 17098:2013 comes in.
This Technical Report (TR) is a comprehensive overview of materials and substances that can wreck or otherwise impede a recycling process. It covers the “materials, combinations of materials, or designs of packaging that may create problems in collecting and sorting before material recycling; substances or materials that have the potential to create problems in the recycling process; and the presence of substances or materials that may negatively influence the quality of the recycled material.
The list includes materials that influence the quality of packaging products made from recyclate and for which it is unlikely that technical solutions can be expected any time soon. But there is a problem with relying on a list like this. Different regions have different recycling operations and it is virtually impossible to keep track of all technology developments everywhere. And packaging materials are very often mixed up which can make it hard to produce new packaging materials that are reliably fit for purpose.
Sustainability depends on understanding and controlling environmental impacts, so business owners need to keep up with both international legislation and technological advances. It’s important to quantify product requirements and to design products so that their components can be recycled. In addition we need much more sophisticated and consistent sorting routines, especially across large geographies, where recycling policies can vary from town to town. Investment into such organisation will help cut negative environmental impacts and provide the basis of transparent supply chains for recycling and raw material quality control. It’s a long and slow road, and it’s work that must be done, no matter how numb and bludgeoned it leaves the little grey cells.
Laurel Brunner
This blog has been made possible by: Agfa Graphics (www.agfa.com), Digital Dots (http://digitaldots.org), drupa (www.drupa.com), EFI (www.efi.com), Fespa (www.fespa.com), Heidelberg (www.uk.heidelberg.com), Kodak (www.kodak.com/go/sustainability), Mondi (www.mondigroup.com/products), Pragati Offset (www.pragati.com), Ricoh (www.ricoh.com), Shimizu Printing (www.shzpp.co.jp), Splash PR (www.splashpr.co.uk), Unity Publishing (http://unity-publishing.co.uk) and Xeikon (www.xeikon.com).
Blokboek.com is the Dutch media partner of Verdrigris, a non-profit initiative which aims to realistically chart the real footprint of printing and which helps companies and organisations to lower that footprint. More information about Verdrigris can be found via this link.
We have been much occupied of late with a project to ensure that printed matter can be effectively recycled. It has to be said that standards work, and this work in particular, can be tedious beyond words. Other so very much more tempting options beckon. There’s the temptation to straighten ones speaker wires or rearrange the cutlery draw in age order, to name but two. It requires a will of iron to resist such urges.
We are not alone in working on documents that are an aid to recycling, though we may be alone in finding this work so deeply uncompelling. The only hope is that awareness of the value of recycling is rising around the world, not least because one man’s (or woman’s) waste is another man’s (or woman’s), raw material. Within printing we have all manner of juicy controversy surrounding the deinkability of digitally printed matter which influences its recyclability. This basically comes down to the fact that if the print isn’t deinked using modern deinking technology, it might pollute the pulp used to create new papers. Obviously this is not good, but isn’t reluctance to invest in modern deinking technologies worse? The problem persists elsewhere, with other industries facing equivalent problems, which is where ISO/TR 17098:2013 comes in.
This Technical Report (TR) is a comprehensive overview of materials and substances that can wreck or otherwise impede a recycling process. It covers the “materials, combinations of materials, or designs of packaging that may create problems in collecting and sorting before material recycling; substances or materials that have the potential to create problems in the recycling process; and the presence of substances or materials that may negatively influence the quality of the recycled material.
The list includes materials that influence the quality of packaging products made from recyclate and for which it is unlikely that technical solutions can be expected any time soon. But there is a problem with relying on a list like this. Different regions have different recycling operations and it is virtually impossible to keep track of all technology developments everywhere. And packaging materials are very often mixed up which can make it hard to produce new packaging materials that are reliably fit for purpose.
Sustainability depends on understanding and controlling environmental impacts, so business owners need to keep up with both international legislation and technological advances. It’s important to quantify product requirements and to design products so that their components can be recycled. In addition we need much more sophisticated and consistent sorting routines, especially across large geographies, where recycling policies can vary from town to town. Investment into such organisation will help cut negative environmental impacts and provide the basis of transparent supply chains for recycling and raw material quality control. It’s a long and slow road, and it’s work that must be done, no matter how numb and bludgeoned it leaves the little grey cells.
Laurel Brunner
Dit blog wordt mogelijk gemaakt dankzij de bijdrage van: Agfa Graphics (www.agfa.com), Digital Dots (http://digitaldots.org), drupa (www.drupa.com), EFI (www.efi.com), Fespa (www.fespa.com), Heidelberg (www.uk.heidelberg.com), Kodak (www.kodak.com/go/sustainability), Mondi (www.mondigroup.com/products), Pragati Offset (www.pragati.com), Ricoh (www.ricoh.com), Shimizu Printing (www.shzpp.co.jp), Splash PR (www.splashpr.co.uk), Unity Publishing (http://unity-publishing.co.uk) and Xeikon (www.xeikon.com).
BlokBoek.com is de Nederlandse media-partner van Verdigris, een non-profit initiatief dat de werkelijke voetprint van druk- en printwerk die drukwerk achterlaat eerlijk in kaart wil brengen en dat bedrijven en organisatie steunt om die voetprint te verlagen.
Meer informatie over Verdigris vindt je via deze link.
Inkjet CTP, producing offset plates in daylight without developer, has been promising to be the solution for offset printers with a small budget for more than 10 years. However, this supposedly clever technology has had only limited success. The quality of the image and the inconsistent impressions hindered complete acceptance in the industry. Glunz & Jensen, one of the pioneers in this technology, promises to have a professional solution with the new iCTP PlateWriter Pro 3600. The contemporary design produces landscape format plates up to 915 x 1140 mm. iCTP does not need chemicals, the plate is instantly usable. Unfortunately the system is not entirely environmentally friendly as solvent inks are necessary for the Liquid Dot technology which delivers printable images on standard, non light sensitive, aluminium plates. According to Glunz & Jensen up to 50,000 prints are possible with these iCTP plate. When the PlateWriter Pro 3600, which was introduced during the Graph Expo in Chicago, will be available in Europe is not yet known.
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Inkjet CTP, in daglicht zonder ontwikkeling offsetplaten maken, belooft al meer dan 10 jaar de oplossing te zijn voor offsetdrukkers met een beperkt budget, maar deze op het oog slimme techniek had een beperkt succes. De beeldkwaliteit en de wisselende oplagen die er mee behaald werden stonden een algemene acceptatie in de weg. Glunz & Jensen, één van de pioniers van deze techniek, belooft met zijn nieuwe iCTP PlateWriter Pro 3600 een professionele oplossing gevonden te hebben. Met een eigentijds ontwerp produceert de Platewriter landscape formaat platen tot 915 x 1140 mm. iCTP heeft geen chemie nodig, de plaat is direct drukklaar. Helaas is het systeem niet geheel milieuvriendelijk, het gebruikt solvent inkten om met Liquid Dot techniek een drukbaar beeld te maken op standaard, niet lichtgevoelige, aluminiumplaten. Tot 50.000 afdrukken kunnen volgens Glunz & Jensen gemaakt worden met deze iCTP platen. Wanneer de PlateWriter Pro 3600, die tijdens de Graph Expo in Chicago geïntroduceerd is, in Europa leverbaar is is nog niet bekend.
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Due to the success of the Minions movie this summer, Minions have become so popular that Minion yellow is now an officially recognised Pantone colour. Film makers Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures, together with Pantone, have produced a yellow which is as close to the yellow animations as possible. Minion yellow, also called vitamin yellow, expresses “hope, joy and optimism”. Minion yellow has the reference 116C on the new Pantone colour fan.
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During the World Publishing Expo 2015, 5-7 October in Hamburg, Germany, Agfa will introduce their first chem-free plate for the newspaper industry, the N94-NCF. Apart from higher run-lengths, up to 300,000 (depending on the press), the possibility of using UV inks, the high image contrast and the daylight and scratch resistance will make the N94-VCF suitable for more than just newspaper production. Added bonus is the fact that the new Attiro VHS clean-out unit has minimal gum consumption and maintenance is only required after 8,000 m2.
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Tijdens de World Publishing Expo 2015, 5-7 oktober in Hamburg, Duitsland, introduceert Agfa zijn nieuwe chemievrije offsetplaat voor de krantenindustrie, de N94-VCF. Naast grotere oplagen, tot 300.000 (afhankelijk van perscondities) en de mogelijkheid om met UV inkten te drukken, zullen volgens Agfa de hoge beeldcontrastwaarde, krasbestendigheid en het in gewoon daglicht kunnen werken met een belichte plaat de N94-VCF niet alleen voor krant-achtige producties geschikt maken. Extra pluspunt is dat bij verwerking van de plaat in de nieuwe Attiro VHS clean-out unit minder gom gebruikt wordt en dat onderhoud pas plaats hoeft te vinden als er 8.000 m2 plaat is ontwikkeld.
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The success of all computer devices is largely dependent on what you can do with them: spreadsheets made a success of the first PCs, internet browsers were responsible for the rise of laptops and social media apps for the success of the smartphone. In the case of the new iPad Pro it could very well be that Adobe provides the killer apps. With Adobe Comp a perfect layout is a question of minutes, editing photos is a doddle with Photoshop Fix and Adobe Sketch makes the iPad Pro´s new stylus into a useful tool for designers.
If you want to see how this really works, look at Adobe´s short introduction during the iPad Pro presentation.
Het succes van elk computer device wordt bepaald door wat je er mee kunt doen; spreadsheets maakten van de eerste PC’s een succes, internet browsers hielpen de opkomst van laptops en social media apps stonden aan de basis van het smartphone succes. Voor de nieuwe iPad Pro zou Adobe wel eens de killer-apps kunnen gaan leveren. Met Adobe Comp maak je in een paar minuten een perfecte lay-out, met Photoshop Fix pas je foto’s razendsnel aan en met Adobe Sketch krijgt de nieuwe stylus van de iPad Pro voor ontwerpers echte waarde. Als je wilt zien hoe dat in de praktijk uitpakt kijk dan naar de korte intro van Adobe Comp via deze link, daar vind je ook info over Sketch en Fix.
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Inkjet printers and increasingly offset presses are capable of printing additional colours to Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Kelb. The combination of these extra colours to achieve full colour images is specialised work with special software, especially where it concerns spot colours. To be able to see in advance how the spot colours influence the colour possibilities the Pantone Extended Gamut Guide is now available. A colour fan with 1,729 colour combinations. With these colour combinations the fight for the biggest colour spectrum is now a lot easier, and it is also easier to explain to your clients what is and what isn´t possible.
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Inkjet printers en in toenemende mate ook offsetpersen zijn in staat om naast Cyaan, Magenta, Yellow en Kelb extra kleuren te drukken. De combinatie van die extra kleuren voor gebruik in full colour beelden is een vak apart en vraagt speciale software, zeker als het gaat om steunkleuren. Om vooraf te zien welke kleurmogelijkheden een extra steunkleur oplevert is er nu de Pantone Extended Gamut Guide, een kleurenwaaier met 1.729 kleurcombinaties. Met die kleurcombinaties wordt de strijd om het grootste kleurgamma een stuk makkelijker en is het eenvoudiger een opdrachtgever uit te leggen wat er wel en niet mogelijk is.
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Everything was bigger and better during the September Apple Event. The room was bigger and filled with even more enthusiastic Apple fans, the new iPhones have the fastest processor ever and promises to do everything twice as fast, the new Apple TV has the same processor and can be used for fast HD games and online shopping, and app developers can now conquer the living room. The big news was the iPad Pro, a 12,8 inch tablet which has to compete with the Microsoft Surface and has quite a few advantages, especially for business use. The larger screen size, the stylus and the keyboard seem to make for an ideal combination between a tablet and a laptop. It will be on sale from November for those willing to spend over 1,000 Euro. Two announcements which interested me most were Live Photos, an automated animated GIF to bring photos to live without difficult manipulation, and 3D Touch which enables the force of your touch to add functions, for example reading your mail, responding to mail and deleting it in one sweep. 3D Touch will definitely be useful for panels on presses and production printers, that is if the operator stays calm when something goes wrong …….
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VIGC BOPE 2025: Redefining print. Success in a digital world. Met o.a. Peter Luit als gesprekleider binnen het panelgesprek ‘Platformeconomie, kansen voor grafimedia bedrijven?’
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De trainingen voor 2022 staan gereed. Kijk voor het volledige online aanbod van bestaande- en nieuwe trainingen op de website.
BLOKBOEK.COM EN PRINTMEDIANIEUWS: HET OPTIMALE DOELGROEP BEREIK