What makes printing sustainable: paper, inks and waste

Printing has a reputation problem. Say "print shop" and some people picture a forest going into one end of a machine and junk mail coming out the other. I get it. We put ink on paper for a living. That is exactly why we think about this more than most people would guess.

"Sustainable" is also one of those words that gets printed on everything, usually in green, usually next to a leaf. So here is what it means in practice, piece by piece, without the leaf.

It starts with the paper

Paper comes from a renewable resource and can be recycled, which already puts it ahead of a lot of materials. The question is where the fiber came from.

That is what FSC certification answers. FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council, an organization that certifies paper made with wood from responsibly managed forests. When you see FSC-certified paper on a quote, it means the source of that paper has been verified. We offer FSC-certified papers, along with recyclable and responsibly sourced materials for other kinds of work.

Then the ink

Ink used to be a petroleum story from start to finish. Two alternatives changed that, and we use both.

• Soy inks replace part of the petroleum oil with oil from soybeans, a crop that grows back every year.
• UV inks are cured instantly with ultraviolet light. They do not dry by evaporating solvents into the air, because there is nothing to wait for. The sheet comes out dry.

The waste you never see

Here is something customers rarely hear about. On a traditional press, a job produces waste before the first good sheet exists. Plates have to be made, and the press has to be adjusted until the color is right. The sheets printed during that adjustment are called make-ready, and they go straight to recycling.

Two things cut that down. Digital proofing lets you approve a job before it reaches the press, so the press is not the place where we find out you meant the other blue. And chemistry-free plates are made without the chemical processing that plates used to require. Less solvent, fewer wasted sheets, and nobody misses either.

The greenest sheet is the one you did not print

This is the part I care about most, and it also happens to save you money, which is my favorite kind of environmentalism.

Ordering 5,000 brochures because the price per piece looked better, and then storing 3,000 of them in a closet until the phone number changes, is not a bargain. It is a very expensive way to recycle. We would rather print the quantity you will actually use and print again when you need more. That is what right-sizing a run means, and choosing between offset and digital is a big part of it.

The most sustainable print job is the one you only have to print once.

What happens to the scraps

Every print shop produces trimmings. Paper is cut to size, plates are used and retired, and wide-format materials leave offcuts. At our shop, paper, plates and substrate scrap are separated and recycled. It is not glamorous. Nobody has ever asked for a tour of the recycling area. But it is where a lot of the difference is made.

And the power behind it

Presses, printers and cutters all run on electricity, so where that electricity comes from matters. Our facility runs on renewable energy, which reduces the carbon footprint of every card, banner and sign that leaves the building.

What you can do as a customer

• Order what you will use. Reordering is easy. Un-printing is not.
• Ask for FSC-certified paper. If it matters to your brand, say so when you request the quote.
• Read the proof carefully. A reprint caused by a typo doubles the footprint of the job and nobody enjoys it.
• Remove dates when you can. A brochure without "2026" on the cover is still useful in 2027.
• Recycle what is left. Paper has more than one life in it.

If sustainability is part of how your company presents itself, your printed pieces should support that story. Tell us what you are printing and what matters to you, and we will recommend papers and quantities to match. Leaf optional.