Reconomy combines technology and skills to enable businesses to better manage their resources, helping to reduce waste, optimise their supply chains and contribute in a meaningful way towards the circular economy.

While this involves working directly with print companies, Reconomy has also partnered with several leading manufacturers and distributors, supporting its customers with textile waste management. One such partnership is with Soyang Europe, whereby printers using materials from Soyang Europe can responsibly dispose of their waste.

This partnership came about three years ago with the support of Fespa UK. Reconomy was working on sustainability initiatives with Fespa, while Soyang Europe is a long-term member of the association.

The process works with Reconomy providing customers with a baler to prepare their textile waste. Soyang Europe then collects the bales when delivering new products to customers, with the waste taken to its facility in Altham in Lancashire ready for bulk collection and transportation to a recycling facility for processing.

‘It was a perfect fit,’ said Reconomy’s director Jon Hutton. ‘Soyang has always been proactive in wanting to offer their customers, and the wider industry, waste management solutions for their products.

‘Sustainability is a hot topic for several reasons. Brands and consumers are looking down the supply chain for environmental credentials, so it’s therefore a driving factor in how to not only maintain and gain business, but how a printer positions themselves for the long term.’

Mark Mashiter, managing director at Soyang Europe, added, ‘It provides our customers with an outlet for their waste. This works well with local customers when we deliver orders to them; we can bring any textile bales back with us and store them in our yard until they are collected.’

Originally, Reconomy had sourced a solution for recycling PVC banner and polyester fabrics at a UK site, whereby waste was blended with other polymers to produce low grade products. While this process ended when more desirable material became available to the market, a recovery route was soon set up and, with the support of Wheeldon Brothers, waste could now be diverted from landfill to renewable energy.

However, recycling has since been re-established and material is again being used in manufacturing processes. Coupled with its use for renewable energy, all of this is helping work towards a circular economy.

An additional benefit to the service is that Soyang Europe is willing to take other supplier’s waste textiles along with its own. This option is available to customers using their own transport within a set radius of Soyang Europe’s facility and when making deliveries.

‘Soyang Europe wants to be part of the environmental solution and not the problem,’ Jon said. ‘The take-back scheme provides a platform for printers to demonstrate their sustainability by providing customers with an outlet for their recycling waste.

‘Several customers have engaged with Reconomy further and are now collecting their own clients’ end-of-campaign textiles, integrating this with the collection of their materials. All loads are tracked, and Certificates of Recycling can be issued once the material has been processed.’

The work does not stop here for Reconomy, with Mr Hutton saying the company will continue to work with Soyang Europe, Fespa UK and its wider membership base to provide more sustainable solutions to the UK industry. 

‘It’s our aim to continue to be a driving force in educating the industry on the importance of recycling and developing circular economies,’ Mr Hutton said. ‘This, with the continued support of Soyang Europe, will ensure more customers take up this service.’

The post Soyang Europe builds sustainable future for customers with Reconomy appeared first on Digital Printer.

Available from 30 November 2023, and held in the Sustainability Training Room at Fespa UK’s HQ in South Yorkshire, the one-day courses are given by Jon Hutton, Fespa UK’s sustainability lead. They have been designed to either integrate a mixed group of businesses and provide them with the opportunity to network and share ideas, or are adapted specifically to focus on an individual supplier and their products.

Mr Hutton, a recognised figure, industry speaker and advocate for continual improvement of sustainability and the development of a circular economy, said, ‘With retail and consumer focus firmly fixed on the damaging environmental effects of manufacturing around the world, brand owners, print consumers, printers and suppliers are seeing the demand for being more environmentally aware.

‘Customers wanting to know the truth about the sustainability of supplier’s product’s is now high on the agenda, and the truth is often challenging, due to the complexity of graphics materials and the waste and recycling industries limitations. Forthcoming greenwashing regulations have added an extra layer to the whole topic of providing accurate information around the subject. This course will deliver answers to all these areas and give suppliers the confidence they need to address and navigate these subjects of their products and services,’ he added.

Suzi Ward, managing director of Fespa UK, said, ‘Suppliers are in a unique position to offer change; they have a responsibility, and now opportunity, to educate themselves and their customers in sustainability and best practices. We look at the lifecycle analysis of products with them to not only consider material options, but also waste and end-of-campaign. They will attain the knowledge to look at what the client currently has in place and confidently discuss environment impacts.’

The supplier course is relevant to business owners, managers and sales teams. It focuses on the four key product categories that are widely used throughout print, signage and graphics, looking at disposal options for paper and board, ridged plastic, flexible plastic and self-adhesive materials.

Courses will be delivered from 10am to 3pm and will include lunch and an opportunity to network and share ideas.

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An invisible watermark could function rather like a passport for individual packages or prints. At each stage of production, data about the print’s composition could be added to the watermark. When the package reaches end-of-life, the mark can be read and evaluated for sorting into the correct recycling process. There are other benefits, too: the watermark can carry details of the manufacturer, the package’s contents, the types of plastic used (if plastic is used) and the composition of laminates and embellishments. There is no end to the range of data that can be encoded, and this may create new opportunities for supply chain management.

In Europe over 150 companies have come together under the auspices of AIM, the European Brands Association, to assess how such digital technology can improve waste sorting and recycling rates for packaging. Their goal is to establish a circular economy for printed packaging in the EU. The Digital Watermarks Project HolyGrail 2.0 has been set up to prove digital watermarking’s viability for waste sorting and to demonstrate the business case for its wider deployment.

It’s very early days yet and the model depends on various other technologies being in place in supply chains and in waste streams. A standard reader and data format would for instance be required for all recyclers. Recycling technologies would also need upgrading to take advantage of the system. But before that recycling supply chains needs to follow some sort of common process everywhere. But this is never going to happen without commercial incentives, regulation of government intervention. The watermarking thing is a clever idea and one whose time will eventually come. Whether we’ll all still be around to see it is another matter.

– Laurel Brunner

This article was produced by the Verdigris Project, an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. This weekly commentary helps printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Fespa, Fujifilm, HP, Kodak, Miraclon, Ricoh, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

The post Steps towards a circular economy appeared first on Digital Printer.

Under its new CEO Bernardo Hees, CEO, the company has renewed
its sustainability commitments. The company published its Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) programme 2015, outlining commitments
to cut by 15% greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, waste to
landfill and energy consumption emissions by 2020, from a 2015
baseline. With an eye on the circular economy Kraft Heinz has now
gone a step further, and aims for all of its packaging to be 100%
recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. That means using more
recyclable plastics and an increase in paper and board usage.
Crucially Kraft Heinz’s CSR commitment extends to the company’s
supply chain, which of course includes packaging designers and
print service providers.

Hees said “We found that most of our emissions are coming from
areas outside our direct operations. To truly succeed as champions
of sustainability, we will look at our full value chain and
determine where we can make the greatest impact for our planet.”
This means that any company providing print media services for
Kraft Heinz branded products should have policies in place
supporting sustainability, such as waste management and production
workflow efficiency. Designers, agencies and print service
providers working on product packaging can work with Kraft Heinz to
support this effort with environmentally friendly packaging designs
and production models. ISO’s technical committee for graphics
technology already has a couple of documents to help with this,
hopefully encouraging more people to consider recyclability as part
of their packaging design criteria.

Packaging designs can optimise sustainability in various ways,
such as by minimising excess components and complex production, and
maximising the use of recyclable materials. Production can be
organised to be as close as possible to its point of use, in order
to minimise emissions associated with transport. Waste handling can
also be supported pre- and post-consumer by print service providers
working in partnership with the brands.

Kraft Heinz has a global presence, so its work towards a
circular economy is relevant worldwide. The company is working with
Environmental Packaging International, a consulting group, to
improve packaging solutions and develop efforts for technical
improvements and improved recycling rates. Kraft Heinz is
partnering with appropriate industry associations and organisations
to look at the technical, end-of-life and infrastruction options
available to it. It is looking into what’s needed and investing in
what’s required. Where possible it’s going beyond increasing the
amount of recycled materials in packaging and reducing overall
packaging volumes. The company has already reduced the overall
weight of its global packaging by 50,000 metric tonnes and is
working on making the PET bottle used in its tomato ketchup fully
circular by 2022. The new PET will use recyclable material that can
be processed into new food grade plastic.

For print service providers this all means improved workflow and
colour management efficiency. It means doing carbon footprint
calculations for packaging based on ISO 16759 for calculating the
carbon footprint of print. It means managing waste control and
logistics optimisation. All of this plus other ideas can be
developed to support the Kraft Heinz expectations and those of its
competitors in the packaging supply chain. More details will be
available in the company’s sustainability report due out later this
year.

– Laurel Brunner

This article was produced by the Verdigris Project, an
industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive
environmental impact. This weekly commentary helps printing
companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how
environmentally friendly business management can help improve their
bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following
companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash
PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

The post The Verdigris blog: Growing momentum for recycling commitments appeared first on Digital Printer.

Sector specific policy statements can help to codify key
sustainability concerns for members. We’ve talked about the three
Rs and we have also suggested adding energy emissions to the list
of things to think about. Next on the list should be suggestions
for improving waste management throughout the supply chain, with
ideas for how to cut waste and use it as a resource.

Paper is probably the biggest source of waste for the printing
and publishing industries. Healthy paper recycling supply chains
are the lifeblood of many paper mills, particularly those producing
newsprint. But modern printing techniques, new ink recipes and the
use of coatings and varnishes and other embellishments can make it
harder to recycle materials using established deinking methods.
This doesn’t mean industry associations should discourage the use
of digital printing and embellishment technologies, far from it:
it’s up to the paper industry to keep up with printing advances.
But industry associations should be advising members to be aware of
the importance of printed paper’s deinkability, and of the
particular type of new paper it can be recycled into.

Other measures to help people deal with waste include process
efficiency and colour management. Getting accurate colour early in
the production process requires awareness of colour management,
device profiling, frequent proofing and discussion with clients to
ensure that the colour they want is the colour they can have. This
aspect of waste management is also a means of improving time
management.

So now we have a basic list of things to consider in an
environmental policy statement for associations. The three Rs,
energy emissions, waste management are just the start but all three
topics can differ in their details, depending on what sector we are
talking about. As long as we work to a common framework, we might
see an overall improvement in overall environmental awareness in
the graphics industry.

– Laurel Brunner

This article was produced by the Verdigris Project, an
industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive
environmental impact. This weekly commentary helps printing
companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how
environmentally friendly business management can help improve their
bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following
companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash
PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

The post The Verdigris blog: Spreading the sustainability message – part 3 appeared first on Digital Printer.

Birmingham-based direct mail fulfilment and print management services provider Bakergoodchild has introduced a 100% compostable and eco-friendly magazine polywrap produced with potato starch from various potato products including waste from the food industry.

The biodegradable mailing wrapping material is being used by a number of Bakergoodchild’s customers, including tour operator Audley Travel, which now uses the substrate to wrap its quarterly publication, Audley Traveller magazine. The sustainable mailing material is designed to provide a robust environmentally responsible packaging alternative with a high-end quality finish.

Cerie Powell from Audley Travel commented, ‘As a tour operator that offers travel experiences around the world, we feel that we have a responsibility to reduce our plastic usage in order to help preserve and protect the environment. As a result, we are starting to look at this across the board, from the products we use in our offices to the items our clients use in destination.’

The post Bakergoodchild aims to eliminate single-use plastics appeared first on Digital Printer.

Prismm Environmental has launched a Zero Foil 2 Landfill scheme, in conjunction with the BPIF, to reduce foil waste ending up in landfill.

It follows the blueprint of the Zero Labels 2 Landfill scheme which has already diverted more than 42,000 tonnes of label waste from landfill.

Under the new scheme, the company is able to process foil waste and avoid sending it to landfill. Collection quantities may range from 600kg up to 26 tonnes.

‘FMCG brand owners and supermarkets are increasingly putting pressure on the supply chain to improve their environmental solutions, and that includes the recovery of materials that have previously been considered difficult to manage,’ explained Mike Jackson, managing director of Prismm. ‘Foil falls into this category because the logistics of moving it are difficult without a scheme that delivers economies of scale. The Zero Foil 2 Landfill scheme addresses this logistical problem meaning that there is now a viable way to recover foil.’

The new system is available to trial for three months. Those that sign up to the scheme will receive Certificates of Destruction for all foil collections and will be eligible to apply for Zero Foil 2 Landfill certification from the BPIF. Scheme members will also be able to display the Zero Foil 2 Landfill logo on all PR materials.

The post Scheme to foil waste appeared first on Digital Printer.

It also revealed that it is working on a new technology inkjet head that it calls ‘pure  MEMS’, or a mechanical head. This is at least two or three years away  from reaching the market, according to Jeff Bean, Memjet’s vice president  of brand & communications.

Details of how it works remain sketchy, but it will incorporate minute moving  flaps at the end of nozzles, which is not an approach taken by any other heads so far. The result, according to Mr Bean, is that the heads will be  able to jet a much wider range of fluids than the current Waterfall high speed thermal design,

Waterfall is currently confined to water based dye inks, although pigment and UV cured inks are planned in future.

Previous partnership and OEM announcements have included Colordyne for a high throughput labeler), Xanté for a 1066 mm wide sheet fed corrugated carton printer), Own-X (labeler and wide format printer), Lenovo and LG Electronics (both for home/office models).

The first commercial press based on the heads is the Delphax elan, an SRA2 format sheetfed printer that is being shown at drupa. It can output 500 A4 pages per minute, adding up to 3750 duplex SRA2 sheets per hour  at 1600 x 800 dpi resolution. The resolution can be increased to 1600 x 1600 dpi, but the speed is halved. It uses a primer coating inline to allow the use of standard papers. The projected price for the press is ‘under $500,000 (about £310,000) with a standard feeder and high capacity stacker.

Delphax also said it will also be the master distributor for the Colordyne high speed labelers, which also use Memjet heads.

Notable recent announcements have been Canon/Océ, for a very fast A0 format roll printer called Project Velocity, which is being demonstrated as a prototype on the Canon stand in Hall 8a. This can print 500 A0 sheets per hour at 1600 x 800 dpi, on inkjet coated papers. It uses the Memjet heads together with a six-roll feed mechanism and a post-print sheeter adapted from existing Océ printers for the CAD/GIS market.

Toshiba TEC has also signed up as a licensee. A future MFP product co-developed by both companies is being exhibited at drupa. This has a scanner, photocopier and colour print engine that produces high quality colour pages at 60 pages per minute

Fuji-Xerox has also announced that it will develop a 42 inch (1066 mm) wide format printer using Memjet heads. According to Graham Leeson, European marketing director for Fujifilm Graphic Systems, the printer is initially being developed for the Far East market and there Is no indication of whether it will be sold outside those territories.

A long term marketing arrangement means that printers in the Far East are sold as Fuji-Xerox badged models, but in the rest of the world they are marketed though Xerox, with Xerox badges. So far Xerox has not indicated that it wlll sell the Memjet based printer outside the Far East.

* Memjet announced last week that it has reached a settlement with Silverbrook 
Research in Australia, the original Memjet inventor. Memjet will assume direct control of all research, development and commercialisation activities for the technology, including services previously provided by Silverbrook
 Research.

Kia Silverbrook, a co-founder of Memjet and president of Silverbrook Research, will continue to support Memjet as a special advisor to the Memjet board and as an on-going consultant.

Contact: www.memjet.com

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