Sustainable Printing

Earlier this week on Sustainable Printing, I made it half way through my 10-part series on how to find a sustainable printer.  In case you haven’t been keeping up to date, I thought I would recap the 1st 5 posts today.

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Today, I wanted to share with my readers some of the sites I visit on a weekly if not daily basis in my research for Sustainable Printing ideas.  Whether it’s a site about paper, recycling or printing, the 5 sites listed below have great resources for everyone to learn more about going green.
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Sustainable Printing means being responsible with our print projects.  We need to balance our environmental impact with our needs for printed material in order to save costs and save our planet.  Sometimes that means simply not printing.  Here are 5 reasons or circumstances where printing is unnecessary.

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Last week on Sustainable Printing, I wrote 5 Reasons to Print Digitally, but this week, I want to explore a few reasons why choosing offset printing may be a better option for certain projects.

1. Offset printing is still the best choice when running large quantities of few originals.  If you have brochures, flyers or postcards, offset printing will more than likely be the most economical choice when you need 1000 or more.

2. If you want to use bio-based inks, you will need to find an offset printer who offers them.  Even though soy and vegetable based inks have been the market for many years, there is still no bio-based toner available for digital presses or printers.

3. Sometimes documents only require spot colors (versus CMYK process).  Offset printing allows printing only 1, 2 or 3 colors with color matching to specific Pantone colors.  This can save you some on cost as well as ensure your business cards in San Diego will match colors with your office in NYC.

4. Speaking of business cards, if you work for a large company or one that burns through business cards frequently, you may want to take advantage of an offset printer’s shell program.  A shell program is when a printer prints 10K+ of your company’s business card “shell”, the part that is universal for all employees and departments.  It’s an upfront cost, but the printer warehouses the shells and when you order cards, you only pay for the printing of the employees’ information.  This can save you a lot of money in the long run.

5. Offset presses typically have a larger sheet size capability.  If your project requires a 24×36 sheet in spot or full color, offset printing may be more economical at quantities as low as 100.  Especially if you need these prints on a thicker substrate, offset printing will more than likely be a better choice than role-fed large format printers.

As always, try to find a printer that has green or sustainable practices in place.  Keep on top of my series 10 Ways to Find a Sustainable Printer that I will continue next week.

Photo Credit: Flickr user jepoirrier

When talking about Sustainable Printing, we have to realize that printing responsibly means utilizing the different available methods for different types of print projects.  Today I share my opinion on 5 reasons to opt for digital printing over other options. (more…)