Global Imaging Green Efforts and Offerings Digital Print Industry Partner Green Initiatives More Cool Green Options In The Digital Print Industry

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BUY USED - Lower The Impact Of Manufacturing New Products

Visit the Global Garage. It is the industry's premier marketplace for buying and selling used print equipment. If you need cash but don't know how to sell your assets, or if you need to upgrade equipment capabilities but can't afford new equipment; come to the Garage. It's good for the environment and your bottom-line.

Recycle

We offer a a FREE and EASY way to recycle all of your solvent and aqueous inkjet consumables. Go to our partner recycling site to begin recycling any aqueous or solvent cartridges, maintenance tanks or other consumables.

What happens to your recycled cartridges and tanks?
• They are sorted at our recycling facility and if possible, the cartridge chips are removed and reprogrammed.
• The plastic, ink bags and septum’s are cleaned repaired and sorted for reuse.
• The remaining ink is removed and sent to Waste Management where it is blended into fuel. This fuel is then used to power a local cement kiln.
• Our recycling process reuses 95% of the ink cartridge by weight compared to OEM recycling which shreds only the plastic to be reused.

Reduce Fossil Fuel Used In Shipping

In as many instances as possible, we drop ship customer orders (ink, media, laminates and hardware) directly from manufacturers or their national distributor channels. In the cases drop shipping is not available to us, we make an effort to ship complete orders from the warehouse as close to the final destination as possible. Therefore we have added warehouses across the country to effectively cover both coasts and everything in-between.

We now offer you 16 warehouse locations across the country. By doing this your orders have fewer miles to travel, less fossil fuels to use in transport and on most consumables we can effectively offer 2-day ground to most metropolitan cities in the U.S.

Lower Shipping Expenses = Reduced Fossil Fuel Use

Printing on lighter materials reduces shipping expenses and the amount of fossil fuels needed to transport the graphics. Check out both our aqueous fabrics and our solvent and UV fabric selection for durable, lightweight, beautiful prints.

In addition to our fabrics we have an entire line of "Green" materials available that range from fabrics to banner products.

Use Fewer Materials In House

The American Paper Institute estimates that manufacturing one pound of office paper (112 sheets of 20# bond) consumes 12 cubic inches of pulpwood, 13.5 gallons of water, 10.5 kWh of electricity and .3 pounds of air pollutants. In 2005 the energy used to make one ream (500 sheets) of paper would equal 2 gallons of gasoline. That is just to make the paper. The distribution and purchase add additional petroleum use to that ream.

Printing less often, printing double-sided and recycling your paper reduces your environmental footprint.

• We re-use single-side printed paper; not ever throwing away/recycle paper that still has one blank side. We keep one printer loaded with single-side printed paper to be used for in-house print documents.
• We print duplex whenever we are printing more than one page. We have one printer setup to default to duplex printing.
• We print only what absolutely needs to be printed, being sure to preview printouts to eliminate unnecessary waste; and format and condense text to save paper.
• We setup electronic desk fax functionality at each computer to cut down on paper printing waste.
• We are working towards sending out electronic invoices and statements rather than traditional method of printing and mailing.

HP Eco Solutions

HP has been making strides to be an environmentally responsible company for many years. Use this link to find out about their extensive initiatives and how you may be able to leverage their efforts.

Solvents Stink. Print With Corn

Use EFI VUTEk's Bio-Solvent inks; the only solvent inks recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The inks provide all the benefits of traditional solvent inks. They produce high print quality, are durable, bond to uncoated substrates, and resist mechanical wear and ultraviolet light. Use this link for more information on EFI VUTEk's Bio-Solvent inks.

Print On Recycled, Recyclable Boards

Check out PlyVeneers BioBoard. This board is made of 63% post consumer waste content and 100% recyclable. It offers the benefits of traditional sheet material and is extremely lightweight due to the special core properties.

Certify Your Green Initiative

The mission of Sustainable Green Printing Partnership is to encourage and promote participation in the worldwide movement to reduce environmental impact and increase social responsibility of the print and graphic communications industry through sustainable green printing practices.

Find a Green Partner

Even if you don't have all the goods to help your customers with their Green Initiative in-house, you can still be their partner and keep them as a loyal, appreciative customer. Use the database at SGS to find a certified printer to partner with.

When The Life Of The Print Is Expired, Give It New Life

Create a recycling service chain for your customers by letting them return their printed scrim products to you. Send the scrim off to Ecological Design's Reclamation Station to be used as materials to make bags, wallets or even custom products that you can resell! They will take PVC Vinyl in solid, sandwiched scrim, or mesh form.