Interpreting China's National Green Printing Standard

Speech by Cao Lei, Deputy Director of the R&D Department of the Environmental Certification Center, Ministry of Environmental Protection, at the Green Printing (Northern Region) Briefing Session

I. Background of Standard Development

· Since its inception, printing has caused damage to the environment. Early printing plates were carved from wood, and paper [Baike] was also made from wood and plants.

· Modern printing processes have caused considerable harm to the environment.

· Prepress uses film for imaging, and processes such as imposition and plate exposure require large quantities of chemicals; used film and plates can basically not be recycled.

· The inks and wash solutions used in printing, as well as the noise generated by equipment, cause great harm to the environment, and the amount of waste paper generated by daily printing is considerable.

· The environmental impact of the glues and laminating materials used in post-press.

II. Determination of Standard Scope

· Printing covers a fairly wide range of areas, and at the present stage it is difficult to put forward environmental labeling standard requirements for all of them. Therefore, the order in which standards are developed is determined according to the following principles:

· Implementation of environmental labeling is promoted, with relatively strong environmental improvement;

· Most domestic enterprises can achieve it through technological upgrading and the use of new materials;

· It has considerable influence on government green procurement and green consumption

III. Principles for Drafting the Standard

· Principle of environmental characteristics: control indicators and requirements are formulated around the main environmental characteristics of the product

· Principle of advancement: standard limits should be set at a level achievable by 20-30% of advanced products

· Principle of internationalization: adopt international standards and advanced foreign standards

· Principle of applicability: it should be applicable to the advanced production level of Chinese products and the testing capability of Chinese laboratories.

· Principle of government support: it should meet the requirements of national laws and regulations, comply with the provisions of relevant national industrial policies, and be consistent with related standards;

· Principle of technological progress: advanced technologies and production processes that promote resource conservation and comprehensive utilization and pollution reduction should be actively adopted.

· Principle of compatibility: when drafting the scope, definitions, classification, testing methods and other content of the environmental labeling standard, the content of existing standards should be adopted.

IV. Source of Standard Tasks

· Task assignment document: Notice on Issuing the 2009 Project Plan for the Development and Revision of National Environmental Protection Standards (Huanbanhan [2009] No. 221)

· Project name: Development of the standard "Technical Requirement for Environmental Labeling Products — Printing" (National Environmental Protection Standard)

· Undertaking unit: Environmental Development Center of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (Sino-Japan Friendship Center for Environmental Protection)

· Participating units: China Printing Technology Association, Beijing Green Cause Culture Development Center, Heshan Astros Printing Ltd., C&C Joint Printing (Guangdong) Co., Ltd., Dongguan Juansi Printing Co., Ltd., AP Group (China) Co., Ltd., Tianjin Toyo Ink Co., Ltd., Beijing Kangde Xin Composite Material Co., Ltd., Jindong Paper (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd., Fujifilm (China) Investment Co., Ltd.

V. Standard Development Process

Kick-off and demonstration meeting (2009.4)

Establishment of the drafting working group (2009.6-7)

Field research, discussions and formation of the draft standard (2009.7-2010.3)

Pre-draft for comments and extensive solicitation of opinions (2010.8)

Signing of the Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Implementing Green Printing by the two ministries (2010.9)

Standard verification (2010.5-2010.11)

Discussion meeting on the draft standard for review (2010.11)

Submission of the draft for review and the drafting explanation (2010.11.28)

Convening of the standard review meeting (2010.12.28)

VI. Main Content of the Standard

The standard is divided into two major parts:

The first part comprises mandatory requirements, including environmental requirements for raw and auxiliary materials such as inks, paper brightness (whiteness), varnishes, adhesives and spray powder, as well as environmental requirements for printed products. The environmental requirements for printed products mainly cover eight elements — antimony (Sb), arsenic (Ba), lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg) and selenium (Se) — and 16 volatile organic compounds.

The second part comprises optional environmental requirements, mainly concerning the environmental requirements for raw and auxiliary materials and for the production process. The requirements for raw and auxiliary materials mainly involve 7 items: substrates, printing plates, blankets, fountain solution, cleaning solutions for plates and blankets, hot-melt adhesives, and post-press surface treatment; the environmental requirements for the production process are assessed across the three processes of prepress, press and post-press with respect to three aspects: resource conservation, energy saving, and recycling and reuse.

Implementation objective: to use raw and auxiliary materials that meet the standard's requirements and go through certified printing processes, so that the final printed products all meet the environmental requirements specified in the standard. The standard ultimately judges by testing the environmental performance of the final printed products.

Mandatory requirements for raw and auxiliary materials

1. Limit requirements for phthalate esters

Content of the indicator: inks, varnishes, blankets, adhesives and other raw and auxiliary materials shall not be formulated with the 6 phthalate esters listed in the table;

Reason for the limit: phthalates are fat-soluble synthetic organic compounds. Among them, DEHP, DBP and BBP are low-molecular-weight phthalate compounds with a carbon content below 8; they cause varying degrees of harm to human health and are persistent environmental pollutants. Yet they are widely used as important additives in plastics, rubber, coatings and many other chemical products. They are regulated under relevant EU directives and standards and US consumer product regulations; the main regulations, directives and standards include BSEN14372:2004, 2005/84/EC, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act H.R.4040 and CaliforniaAB1108.

1. Requirements for paper brightness (whiteness)

Content of the indicator: paper brightness (whiteness) shall meet the requirements of GB/T24999, and the brightness and whiteness of paper used for primary and secondary school textbooks shall meet the requirements of GB/T18359;

Reason for the limit: reducing paper brightness (whiteness) can cut the amount of bleaching agents and the number of bleaching stages for pulp and reduce the use of chemicals such as brightening agents, which means fewer pollutant emissions. At the same time, paper that is too white also has adverse effects on human health.

1. Ink requirements

Content of the indicator: the inks used shall meet the requirements of HJ/T370

Reason for the restriction: lithographic (offset) printing inks are a major source of environmental pollution in printing and printed products. Inks not only pollute the environment and endanger human health during printing; the organic residues on printed products will continue to pollute the environment, and these organic residues and the harmful substances they contain, such as lead, mercury, arsenic and chromium, will also continue to harm the health of printed product users.

1. Varnish requirements

Content of the indicator: the varnishes used shall be water-based or UV-curable varnishes

Reason for the restriction: solvent-based varnishes are hazardous materials and are severely restricted in production and use; moreover, the volatilization of large amounts of solvent causes great harm to the environment, and some solvents, such as toluene, ethylbenzene and other benzene-based solvents, are moderately toxic. This standard therefore prohibits the use of solvent-based varnishes in environmentally labeled printed products.

1. Spray powder requirements

Content of the indicator: the spray powder used shall be plant-based spray powder

Reason for the restriction: spray powder is an indispensable step in today's modern high-speed multicolor offset printing. Its main function is to prevent set-off on the reverse side of printed sheets and improve printing quality and efficiency. Spray powder is made from mineral powder and plant powder as raw materials, refined by modern science, with spherical, crystal-clear, smooth-surfaced particles (particle size 10-25um). It is used to improve the quality of printed products and ensure that post-press processes run smoothly. To ensure the sustainable development of spray powder, this standard requires that only plant-based spray powder be used.

1. Fountain solution requirements

Content of the indicator: the fountain solution used shall not contain methanol

Reason for the restriction: methanol is widely known to the public because of its toxicity. Industrial alcohol contains about 4% methanol; it is used by lawbreakers as drinking alcohol to make counterfeit liquor, and after being drunk by people it causes methanol poisoning. In methanol production plants, the relevant authorities in China stipulate that the permissible methanol concentration in the air is 50mg/m3; work at sites where methanol vapor is present requires a gas mask, and wastewater must be treated before discharge, with a permissible content of less than 200mg/L.

1. Requirements for laminating adhesives

Content of the indicator: the laminating adhesive used shall be a water-based laminating adhesive

Reason for the restriction: laminating adhesive is the glue required for paper-plastic lamination of printed products. Paper-plastic lamination technology can extend the storage time of products. At present, two main types of glue are used in China: solvent-based glue and water-based glue. Solvent-based glue mainly uses benzene-based solvents, which are highly toxic and harmful; this standard therefore prohibits the use of solvent-based laminating adhesives in lamination.

1. Requirements for printed products

Content of the indicator: control requirements are set for 8 heavy metals and 16 volatile substances in printed products

Basis of the indicator:

1. With reference to toy standards such as GB6675-2003, EN71-3, ASTMF963 and ISO8124-3, limit requirements are set for eight elements in printed products: Sb, As, Ba, Pb, Cd, Cr, Hg and Se.
2. Limits of Volatile Organic Compounds in Cigarette Carton and Box Packaging Paper (YC263-2008) sets limit requirements for sixteen volatile substances in printed products.

Contents of the indicators for environmental behavior evaluation requirements for printing raw and auxiliary materials:

1. Sustainable forest certification requirements

Chain of Custody (CoC) certification is certification for commercial organizations that process and sell forest products; it tracks the source of raw materials for forest product processing as well as the storage, transport and sale of the products — that is, the entire process from the forest to the consumer.

1. Requirements for recycled paper

China's wood-pulp papermaking consumes about 10 million cubic meters of timber a year. Today, 4,000 square kilometers of forest disappear from the Earth every year. Forests can provide oxygen for mankind, absorb carbon dioxide, prevent climate change, conserve water sources, shelter wind and fix sand, and maintain ecological balance. To protect forests and reduce harvesting, the demand for timber must be cut. Recycled paper uses waste paper as its raw material: the waste paper is broken up, de-inked and pulped, and then processed through a variety of complex procedures to produce pulp. Part of its raw material comes from recovered waste paper, with some virgin pulp added to increase the strength of the paper product. Recycling 1 tonne of waste paper yields 800 kg of recycled pulp, equivalent to saving 17 large trees, saving 9.6 tonnes of standard coal in papermaking energy consumption and reducing water pollution by 35%.

1. Requirements for natural-color paper

Natural-color paper refers to paper whose entire production process uses no chemical bleaching or dyeing agents. Because such paper contains no fluorescent whitening agents and has a whiteness of 70–74, it protects eyesight, and it is therefore already widely used in textbooks and student exercise books. This has also reversed the notion that "the whiter the paper, the better". In addition, the pulp of some natural-color paper products is non-wood pulp, which provides considerable support for the protection of timber resources, while the production process uses no bleaching or dyeing agents (especially chlorine gas), greatly reducing the environmental load. This standard therefore encourages enterprises to use natural-color paper.

1. Purpose of implementing the indicators:

To ensure the effective and sustainable use of forest resources and reduce the environmental impact during use

1. Fountain solution requirements

Alcohol fountain solution is generally prepared by adding alcohol to an ordinary fountain solution. Alcohol is a surface-active substance that can reduce the surface tension of the solution; in addition, the optimal alcohol concentration range is 8–25%. Alcohol changes the spreading behavior of the fountain solution on the printing plate, greatly reducing the amount of fountain solution used and thus also reducing the likelihood of the printed sheet picking up water and of severe ink emulsification. Because the volatilization of alcohol has a large latent heat of evaporation, it carries away a great deal of heat when it evaporates, lowering the plate surface temperature and reducing dot gain, so that the non-image areas are less prone to scumming. The use of alcohol fountain solution therefore makes it possible to print high-quality, fine offset products.

Use fountain solution with an alcohol addition of less than 5%

Use alcohol-free fountain solution

1. Blanket requirements

Blankets are an important raw and auxiliary material in lithographic printing. Ink is transferred from the printing plate to the paper via the blanket, so all lithographic printing requires blankets. However, in use, blankets wear out due to high-speed operation and must be replaced once worn. Because some enterprises pay little attention to resource recycling, whole blankets are often simply discarded. Our standard therefore stipulates that blankets replaced on large-format presses may be used on single-color presses or small-format presses.

1. Blanket cleaning solution requirements

The wipes specially designed for the automatic blanket washing devices of offset presses are a roll-type nonwoven fabric made of fine fibers (PET 45%) and pulp (55%). They contain cleaning agent components, so no cleaning agent is needed when cleaning the blanket, avoiding VOC emissions from cleaning agents and the discharge of the waste (hazardous waste) generated after the original practice.

1. Printing plate requirements

Processless CTP plates for lithographic printing are plates that, after exposure and imaging on computer-to-plate equipment, require no subsequent processing steps such as chemical development and fixing and can go straight onto the press, and that generate no liquid or solid waste of any kind. For some CTP plates, however, although no chemical development is needed after exposure and imaging, certain non-chemical processing steps are required. Eliminating the chemical development, fixing and cleaning treatments for plates does away with the discharge of ablation debris and of development, fixing and cleaning waste liquids (hazardous waste).

1. Surface treatment requirements

Use polyurethane (PUR) hot-melt adhesive

·EVA hot melt adhesive meets the requirements of HJ/T220

(1) Low usage: to bind the same number of books and periodicals, the amount of PUR adhesive used is only 1/3 that of EVA.

(2) EVA adhesive is applied at 170℃ while PUR adhesive at 120℃; the power of the heating and glue application units is 25.5 KW and 7 KW respectively, so using PUR is more energy-efficient.

PUR adhesive gives off virtually no odor during use, whereas EVA produces large amounts of pungent fumes that escape into the production environment; comparing the two, PUR adhesive has the advantage of reducing VOC emissions.

1. Post-press surface treatment requirements

The hazardous substances in water-based laminating adhesive meet the requirements for water-based adhesives for packaging in HJ/T220

The hazardous substances in water-based varnish meet the requirements of Clause 5.4 of the technical content in HJ/T370

Surface treatment of printed products falls into two categories: lamination or varnishing.

The VOC that ultimately affects the product also mainly originates here.

Lamination is divided into in-line coating lamination and pre-coated lamination. In-line coating lamination is further divided into solvent-based in-line coating and water-based in-line coating; solvent-based in-line coating is already prohibited by this standard, while water-based in-line coating generates no volatile organic compounds, so this standard supports the use of water-based in-line coating;

Because pre-coated film emits no volatile organic compounds during the post-press process, it is more environmentally friendly, so this standard supports the use of pre-coated film

1. Evaluation requirements for the printing process

Basis for the evaluation requirements: these indicators were developed by the standard drafting group through in-depth research at enterprises and calculations with the participating enterprises. They involve electricity consumption, water consumption, printing paper utilization rate, waste generation and recycling rate, etc. These indicators cover the production processes of each stage, the raw and auxiliary materials used and their consumption, waste recycling, hazardous waste treatment, and other items; through these control indicators, enterprises' implementation of energy conservation and emission reduction is assessed.

VII. Significance of formulating the standard

Promote the more mature environmental protection technologies in China

Reduce the use of fountain solutions containing isopropanol

Promote the application of CTP systems

(Source: Bisenet)

— This article is reposted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362158.html