Technology for paper/printing? How much pollution?

With approximately 62,355 firms and sales of $210 billion annually, the printing industry is a significant contributor to the overall U.S. economy. The printing industry is also an important environmental actor in several major areas, such as use of paper (about 8 percent of all the wood cut down worldwide is used for paper production, much of which is used in printing), use of hazardous materials in printing inks, and production of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from cleaning solvents used in the printing process. Regulatory standards and social pressures are requiring printing firms to reduce their use of resources and emissions of hazardous and other substances. Doing this can be costly. In 1994, for example, the printing and publishing industry reported spending over $57 million on pollution control equipment alone.

Many in industry and government agree that preventing pollution tends to be more efficient, from an economic and environmental perspective, than controlling it after the fact. Pollution prevention is accomplished through changes in production, operation, and raw materials use, in contrast to pollution control, which is accomplished by the adoption of emissions-abatement or waste treatment technologies. Indeed, many lithographic printing firms have achieved significant reductions in emissions and regulatory costs through the implementation of pollution prevention. Adoption of alcohol-free fountain solutions, solvent recovery and reuse, non- or low-VOC inks, and non- or low-VOC blanket and roller washes are but a few examples of the kinds of process changes implemented by this industry that have led to significant environmental improvements.