Green Printing Moves Toward Industry-Wide Action: Printing Technology Association of China Issues National Initiative

China's green printing push gained a formal policy framework on September 14, 2010, when the General Administration of Press and Publication and the Ministry of Environmental Protection signed in Beijing the Cooperative Agreement on Implementing the Green Printing Strategy. The agreement was designed to serve ecological civilization, resource conservation and an environment-friendly society, speed up the green printing strategy, transform how the printing industry develops and support the national goal of becoming a 'printing power.' A joint leading group set up by the two ministries was tasked with preparing a green printing action plan, issuing printing environmental label standards, improving the green printing evaluation system, driving standard adoption among printing companies, prioritizing green printing of primary and secondary school textbooks, and then extending it to government procurement product printing and food and drug packaging printing. The framework also includes stronger policy support for printers that adopt green printing, retirement of outdated processes, technologies and capacity, and industry-wide transformation and upgrading. The move marked green printing as the main direction for China's printing sector going forward.

Aiming to build a green printing industry and move green printing from concept to nationwide practice, the Printing Technology Association of China, together with a hundred printing and related enterprises, put forward the following call to peers across China's printing sector:

1. The national printing industry should act quickly, embed green printing principles in operations, pursue low-carbon development, improve production models and achieve clean production. This will create stronger conditions for green printing output and steadily increase the supply of safe, dependable green printing products.
2. Advanced printing enterprises with suitable conditions should align closely with the printing environmental label standards issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and adjust both materials and processing methods. Substrates should include paper certified to sustainable forest requirements, paper with 70% recycled pulp content and natural-color paper. Printing plates should use processless CTP plates. Fountain solutions should be alcohol-free or contain less than 5% alcohol additives. Hot-melt adhesives should use PUR or EVA. Post-press lamination should use water-based lamination or pre-coated film processes. These companies should also keep the 8 heavy metals and 13 emission items under effective control and become certified green printing compliant enterprises.
3. Small and medium-sized printing enterprises that cannot meet the standards in the near term should still move toward green printing. They should improve their production and processing environments, gradually reduce the use of raw and auxiliary materials that fall short of green printing standards, and never use such materials in printed products for which the government has explicitly required green and environmentally friendly materials.
4. Printing equipment and material producers and suppliers are the source of green printing delivery. They should produce high-quality, reasonably priced green and environmentally friendly products and provide truthful, accurate product documentation. If a producer or supplier does not have a product that meets green and environmental requirements, it must not be passed off as such.
5. All printing and related enterprises should uphold good faith. Any product presented as a green printing product must be processed strictly under green printing standards, providing society with green printing services of genuine practical value. Products that do not currently meet green printing standards should not be mixed in, let alone passed off as green printing products.
6. Printing industry media should give strong coverage to the national green printing strategy and follow its implementation. They should report on the concepts and results of leading enterprises, highlight consumer interest in and expectations for green printing products, and promote interaction between green printing and society.
7. We welcome government policy and funding support for green printing and look forward to rapid implementation of related work. We also call on publishing units to support green printing through premium pricing and to join efforts to build an environment-friendly society and a strong publishing nation.

We are confident that, under the leadership of the General Administration of Press and Publication, with support from relevant government departments and publishing units, and through the sustained joint efforts of the national printing community, the main green printing targets in the 12th Five-Year Plan for the printing industry and the goal of building a strong printing power can be reached soon. We hope colleagues across the industry will act, turn this initiative into real steps, work together, and provide more green printing products to society, helping create a better living environment and benefit future generations.

May green printing walk together with a better life.

Printing Technology Association of China

April 15, 2011

(Draft for public comment online)

— Reposted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362127.html