Ask the average printer what the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) means to their business, and they would probably say ‘not much'. After all, most are exempt - they're either too small or have a Climate Change Agreement already in place.
Yet, many of these printers would be wrong. For when about 6,000 of the largest energy users in the UK begin their mandatory obligation to measure, monitor and reduce their carbon emissions next month, the print industry will find itself very much in the thick of it.

"CRC businesses, a number of which are retailers, will look hard at their POS, packaging and marketing materials and start to examine how easy they are to recover and recycle," says Easibind International managing director Harry Skidmore. "Printers will be asked to do more to help them."

In these times of expanding landfill sites, the CRC will only serve to push waste and recyclability further up the agenda. So what lengths are manufacturers and printers going to make print jobs as recyclable as possible? How are they being limited by substrates, inks, laminates and print processes? And what does the future hold for the recycling of print?

Easibind is well prepared for the CRC. The Derbyshire-based company, which was awarded The Carbon Trust Standard last year, offers closed-loop recycling to its retail customers. It produces POS, print promotions and stationery, made from polypropylene (PP), which are returned to the Derbyshire-based printer after use and then granulated into pellets, before being sent back to the original supplier on existing distribution trucks. The pellets are made back into sheets that are subsequently reordered by Easibind, so completing the loop.

"At the moment we're recovering about 50 tonnes a year, but there's potentially a huge amount more out there that can be recycled," says Skidmore. "The essential point is that it's a monocore material that we're recycling. Single core materials are obviously easier to recover and more efficient to recycle, whether that material is all-fibre or all-polymer."

Pasting up a storm
Another company that uses monocore materials in a closed-loop is Bristol-based Urban Storm. Instead of the traditional paper and paste-up for its outdoor advertising print, the large-format printer has developed Ecoflex, a patented polyethylene (PE) material that has no phthalates and generates a carbon footprint 73% smaller than PVC.

Introducing PE didn't come without its problems, however. According to Sam Cook, Urban Storm's managing director and founder, PE is half the strength of PVC, so banner eyelets tend to fail.

Cook got around this with Stormflex, a way of tensioning the material that removes the need for keders - the ridge on the edge of the sheet. Instead, the PE fabric is tightened with simple clamps, cables and a winch. A single person is now able to change a poster from the ground in around 15 minutes, half the time it takes to paste up a poster.

"We've knocked around 40%-50% off the cost of a traditional PVC poster by removing the keders. Now the printed fabric can literally be just cut, folded and put into a bag before being sent to a customer," explains Cook. "People want something that's green, but they don't necessarily want to pay for it. If you can produce something that is green, looks beautiful, yet is only half the price, then you're on to something."

Ink issues
The product had plenty of technical challenges, says Cook, all of which required considerable time and investment to get right. Inks were a particular problem - not only in how they strike the substrate, but also in how they adhere to it without flaking off. In the end, Fuijfilm's Sericol ink proved to be sticky and flexible enough to hold whether the fabric is folded or under tension.

Ink type continues to have profound impact on the recyclability of a product, whatever substrate is used to print on. According to Intergraf's Recycling of Printed Products report, a number of water-based inks fail to de-ink properly from paper - the ink breaks up into very small particles, rather than ink fragments. As a result, in most cases the recycled paper performs badly when used again for print.

UV-cured inks and varnishes are equally difficult to separate from the paper fibres, claims the report, which recommends "clear washbourne varnish". The report also highlights a problem with greener vegetable-based ink. Exposed to heat and sunlight, these inks become harder to separate and so more energy is used in the recycling process.

Of course, there are also the well-documented problems with the recyclability of inkjet - many digital presses can only use inks that cannot be de-inked. Steve Wicks, director of print management firm Greenprint Consultancy, puts this down to the "transitory phase" of the technology. "Inkjet manufacturers are waking up to the fact that their inks aren't easily recyclable, and now many are starting to come up with alternative ink-sets," he says.

So Wicks is optimistic about inks, but when it comes to laminated print - notoriously hard to recycle - he isn't quite so upbeat. "OPP lamination is the classic design choice, but it has the highest environmental impact on the product," he says. "The new range of recyclable and biodegradable acetate laminates such as CelloGreen and Eco Lam are a much more eco-friendly, but they do carry a cost premium."

John Gilmore, managing director of lamination equipment specialist Autobond, takes a pragmatic view on recyclability. "When people talk about biodegradable film they really mean acetate, and it's a very difficult material to laminate successfully. It is brittle by nature and obtaining a good finish using EVA adhesive is extremely challenging. It can be achieved, but the adhesive itself does not break down and so the entire job would not be biodegradable even if you are able to do it."

At the other extreme there are films coming out on the market that start to break down the moment you use them, says Gilmore. "If you want to laminate a job to preserve it for the future, such as a photo album or book cover, then using this sort of material would be totally useless."

By developing a dual laminator-UV varnish coater, Gilmore claims Autobond offers the best of both worlds. "If you want your printed material to have a particular feel about it, then you probably need to use a matt film. However, if the job only requires a gloss, then there is the option to apply a UV varnish, which is biodegradable. With both processes readily available within one machine customers have the option to use whatever is the most appropriate in the circumstances."

Longevity
While laminated print scores poorly on recyclability, it redeems itself on an aspect Gilmore touches on - preservation. A laminated hardbacked book cover is intended to far outlast any paperback equivalent, so logically its recyclability is perhaps considered less of an issue. This logic applies in the bindery as well, where, according to Wicks, "the general consensus is that it's important to choose the right adhesive for the product based on its expected lifespan and level of usage".

"Wire stitches are easy to remove in the paper recycling, but adhesive from perfect-bound books can be problematic," he adds.

The choice of glue is one that can have a significant impact on recyclability, with some less readily recyclable than others, agrees Alan Harrison, technical finishing products manager at bindery specialist IFS. "We work closely with suppliers to ensure customers have the choice of glue that matches their performance and sustainability criteria," he adds.

Such a collaborative approach with customers is vital to keeping the cost of recyclable print down, says Wicks. "We can advise clients on making the best environmental decisions within their budgets, although going green shouldn't carry a premium; a good FSC or PEFC paper, for example, shouldn't cost any more than a non-accredited paper."

Wicks concedes the issue of whether the product ends up in landfill or not is often a secondary consideration for publishers, but he believes they could be missing a trick. "We encourage clients to put as much recycling information on the product as they can, and use a Möbius recycling symbol," he says. "It should be viewed as a marketing tool."

On the other hand, Wicks suggests there's an argument for all printed products to state clearly if they're not recyclable - this might cut down the amount of OPP lamination being used while inkjet manufacturers would have to move faster to find recyclable inks. "One day the industry may have to wake up to the fact that if we don't self-regulate, then government will step in. The environment is one area where governments seem genuinely prepared to hand out legislation."

Come April, those 6,000 or so businesses operating under the CRC will testify to that.

CASE STUDY
‘If there is a need, there is a way’ is a mission statement that Avi Hochshteadt, managing director of XL Print, tries to apply to everything the company does. Two years ago, the large-format digital printer launched a PVC recycling service – and it has been a resounding success.

Our customers wanted to be greener so we had to find a way of re-using PVC and not send it to landfill, he says.
The Portsmouth-based company’s solution was to work with recycling firm ALD Industry to convert used PVC into alternative products such as bags and barrier sheets used in agriculture to prevent weeds.

Hochshteadt says a small premium is charged to cover the cost of the logistics, while the brass eyelets from the returned PVC are simply cut out and sent to another recycling facility.

He investigated the possibility of using biodegradable materials and decided they weren’t as reliable as traditional PVC. In some cases, they weren’t as green as they first appeared either. We were looking at materials that were 50% biodegradable after 150 years. Where’s the logic in using them? he asks.

With two Scitex printers and a £1m-plus turnover, Hochshteadt says XL Print is a large enough company to make PVC recycling work. A small printer producing around 200m2 per month would struggle to find it economically viable. Aside from the logistics, you need certificates to prove the material is to be recycled, and they cost money.