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 ISO is currently reviewing an important document, the ISO Guide 64. For the printing industry, and indeed all product manufacturers, this snappy tome makes for interesting-ish) reading. Its purpose is to explain how to take environmental concerns into account when creating product standards. The idea of Guide 64 … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner There are many approaches to paper recycling, but as a rule printing industry associations rarely get involved. The Japanese Federation of Printing Industries (JFPI) is an outstanding exception to this rule. One of the biggest difficulties for recycling supply chain efficiency is sorting. The JFPI has developed a … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Silver has been known to be antimicrobial since antiquity when water was stored in silver jugs to kill bacteria. More recently, silver nanoparticles are used in clothing to prevent socks and teeshirts getting stinky. Adding them to cardstock, as Dr. Theresa Dankovich post-doctoral associate at Carnegie Mellon University … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We have been much occupied of late with a project to ensure that printed matter can be effectively recycled. It has to be said that standards work, and this work in particular, can be tedious beyond words. Other so very much more tempting options beckon. There’s the temptation … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner The packaging industry is quite amazing in its complexity and poses an absolute chaos of problems and possibilities for packaging printers. One of the more slippery aspects of this industry sector is compliance with health and safety and especially with environmental regulations. These vary around the world both … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Recently we’ve been working on a document for ISO that assesses the deinkability of print. It’s been gruelling work and the cause of more than one sleepless night, not just because of difficulties to do with defining assessment criteria. It’s been a hard slog because this document has … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner One of the benefits of implementing an ISO standard or going for an environmental label is the management and process discipline it imposes. This may seem obvious, but labels and standards can be a useful tool for helping companies improve environmental management. In doing so, they often improve … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner The Greek government’s antics and dissemblings to the upper echelons of the European Commission have been astonishing. They’ve been played out on a public stage that one way or another has involved everyone. But life goes on beyond the bounds of Greek high drama, even for the European … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner A couple of years ago carbon footprinting was high on the agenda for all industries. People worked feverishly to develop standards to support it, even in the printing industry which has a standard dedicated to calculating the carbon footprint of print media. ISO 16759 was published a couple … Read more
The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Many printing companies around the world have rainwater capture systems which they use to water their shrubberies and lawns, or for flushing toilets. Not many of them see making their car parks and loading bays look pretty as being of benefit to the wider community. However they might … Read more