Here you will find blogs from Digital Dots and Verdigris covering technology and sustainability advances in the graphics industry over the last 25 years.
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We’ve come across a rising number of compostable alternatives to plastic of late. The ideas are heading in the right direction, but there needs to be a lot more thought put into how these materials are handled in the waste stream. Plastics were for decades the answer to … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner By 2025 the European Union’s (EU) Circular Plastics Alliance expects ten million tonnes of plastic to be recycled every year. To achieve this goal the EU has obtained pledges from some of the world’s biggest print buyers including IKEA and Coca Cola. Longer term, all plastic packaging placed … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Earlier this year the European Union (EU) published some updates to its ecolabelling criteria. The updates reflect responses to consultations with businesses and other stakeholders, and most of them are pretty unexciting. But there are some points that graphics professionals might want to know about, since these changes … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner The circular economy is rapidly moving from being the preserve of green activists and investors out into the mainstream. The idea that everything we use should be reused as a new raw material has huge implications for the environment and of course for climate change. But making real … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Sad to say the paper industry is still one of the world’s top polluters, alongside steel and energy producers. According to the European Union’s (EU) Science hub the sector is still Europe’s fourth largest polluter and yet it could be doing far more to reduce its emissions. Paper … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We tend to expect the makers of substrates to be the ones who come up with affordable and recyclable materials, but Australia’s Cactus Imaging is putting those manufacturers to shame. Cactus Imaging is Australia’s market leader for large format digital print, with extensive international and domestic client bases. … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner The enthusiasm for plastics reuse and recycling initiatives is a step in the right direction, but it overlooks the role of consumers. For most people understanding what can and cannot be recycled is difficult, so perhaps the graphics industry can help. Perhaps plastic materials that can be composted … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner At the recent Xeikon Café event in Belgium, on display were samples of single use cups printed on a new plastic free stock. Xeikon announced that it is partnering with Kotkamills, a Finnish company which develops repulpable, recyclable and renewable paperboards for packaging and food service applications. Kotkamills … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Corporate Knights is a Canadian research and publishing company dedicated to reporting on sustainable capitalism. Since 2005 it has compiled an annual list of the top one hundred most sustainable companies in the world. Corporate Knight conducts its evaluations independently and companies make no submissions, except to verify … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Packaging printed onLow Density Polyethylene (LDPE) is changing. LDPE is the cheapest and most commonly used recyclable plastic but it takes hundreds of years to biodegrade. This is in part why various packaging print buyers are moving to alternatives and a key candidate is plastics made from potato … Read more