Vegetable-based Inks & Sustainability

1. Vegetable-based Inks & Sustainability

3. Soy ink is good for the environment.True or False?

4. No ink is good for the environment! But from a sustainability aspect, experts agree that vegetable-based inks are better, and moving in the right direction.

6. First developed by the newspaper industry in the 1970s in response to rising petroleum prices, soy and other vegetable-based inks offer a healthier, environmentally friendly alternative to conventional ink. But there are some surprises…

7. Misconceptions: The biggest misconception people have is that all of the components of soy ink are made from soy,but oil is just one component of ink.  Other ingredients include pigments, resins and film formers, and various additives to lend desired characteristics to different kinds of ink. Some of those other components may come from renewable resources, but many do not. Pigments, especially, are generally mineral in origin and it’s not uncommon for them to be toxic. For instance, carbon black is widely used as the pigment for black ink and is classified as a carcinogen.

9. What may come as a surprise to many people is that most veggie inks contain substantial amounts of petroleum. An ink’s oil content must be a minimum of 6 percent to 40 percent soy, depending on it’s intended use. That means that some inks labeled as soy-based could be 6 percent soy and 97 percent other ingredients.

14. Does Soy ink emits fewer VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) than conventional ink? • This is complicated, because there are emissions that are higher than the contents, because of chemical changes that happen during drying. However soy ink is still a great improvement over conventional ink. • less volatile solvents is a major contributor to the improved air quality.

15. “One of the wonderful side effects of (switching to vegetable inks) is that (our shop) doesn’t smell like a print shop anymore,” reports the owner of Minuteman Press, who has switched exclusively to using vegetable-based inks. “We have reduced our VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) 22%, and our HAPs (Hazardous Air Pollutants) by 93% by switching from petroleum based inks to veg-based inks.”

16. Sustainable Green Printing Partnership is an organization that certifies Printing Companies as “Green”.

17. Soy is one of the major crops used in conventional agriculture’s monoculture system, which severely limits biodiversity and inhibits ecosystem resiliency. Over 90 percent of U.S. soy fields are planted in genetically modified soy; GMO’s present a range of environmental concerns. http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/04/superweeds-arent-only-trouble-gmo-soy

19. Best-selling book postulates that genetically manipulated wheat is responsible for the sky-rocketing number of people who are glutin-intolerant and glutin-sensitive. Also, the disease Celiac used tobe very rare and is now very common.

20. Also, the global demand for soy products contributes to large-scale deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and elsewhere.

22. Soy may be a renewable resource. But it does take diesel to grow soy, so thinking that each drop of soy ink used is a drop of petroleum saved is a fallacy. On the other hand, soy beans require minimal chemical input compared to many other crops. There’s no denying that even vegetable inks containing mineral components are usually far less toxic than conventional inks. And, veggie inks are proving to be more biodegradable.

23. Sustainability is a complicated goal. However with soy-based inks, experts agree that the choice is a move in the right direction.

29. What kinds of clients would want soy-based inks?

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