Digital Media vs Printed Matter

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Working out if it’s better for the planet to communicate in print, or to do it digitally just got easier, sort of. ISO standards developers working on documents for graphics technologies, have written a document for calculating the carbon footprint of electronic media. ISO 20294 is moving into … Read more

Dignity in Rags

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner By all accounts the textile printing business is set to explode, thanks to digital printing technologies. For instance Fibre2fashion, analysts for the fashion industry, reckon that in 2017 the amount of fabric printed digitally will be more than one billion square metres and reach 2.5 billion square metres … Read more

Energy Calculations for Digital Presses

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner The problem is not unique to digital presses, but how do you measure energy usage and the overall energy efficiency of a machine? With cars the most usual method is the miles per gallon, or how many litres of fuel it takes to travel 100 kilometres. Just in … Read more

Waste and guilt

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Guilt is a powerful driver for improving environmental impacts and recycling in particular. The paper industry has done a great job in teaching consumers that paper should not be thrown away, because it can be recycled. They have also done a great job in teaching people that resources … Read more

Printing Plates Progress

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner As digital printing keeps up its steady march across the graphics landscape, it’s easy to forget about progress in conventional print. In addition to improvements in makeready times and energy efficiency on press, great strides have been made with consumables, especially printing plate technologies. Most attention gets paid … Read more

FESPA & Green

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner The Fespa show in Hamburg last week brought together a huge lineup of players. They came from all parts of the sign and display business, including digital wide format and screen printing technology providers and users. The textile printing system makers and buyers were also out in force, … Read more

Eco Labels

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Last time we checked there were almost five hundred different eco labels around the world. Most of them applied to food and coffee, or soil or some such. But a handful, such as the Nordic Swan, apply to any type of business, including the graphics industry. The Nordic … Read more

Ignorance and Bamboo

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner It’s not unusual to encounter examples of environmental ignorance or to hear alarming comments from people who should know better. We experienced both in a recent meeting whilst discussing the need for environmental standards in the graphics industry. We were told in no uncertain terms that environmental science … Read more

What happens to dead IT?

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We all know what happens to printed paper when it’s sent off for recycling. It either gets burnt or sent for processing into new materials, but when old computers reach end of life, matters are less simple.  Reducing the amount of electronic and electrical material that ends up … Read more

250th Verdigris blog!

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Wow. Hard to get the noggin around the fact that this is the 250th Verdigris environmental blog we’ve written. Over the last five years or so we have covered all manner of environmental matters relevant to the graphics industry. But has it made any difference to the market’s … Read more