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Soy Based Ink Printing : The New Wave of Commercial Printing

In this country, commercial printing products are all around us. We have newspapers delivered daily, our mail is jammed with glossy brochures and catalogs, and billboards line our city streets. Like baseball and apple pie, it’s a part of our culture. But what many people might not know is that the traditional commercial printing process is very taxing on the environment. It uses tons of paper, energy, and—perhaps worst of all—the ink and solvents used in printing presses produce large amounts of volatile organic compounds, also known as VOC’s, which are pollutants that can contaminate air, soil and groundwater.

Luckily, many in the printing industry have sought and developed greener, earth friendly solutions to the pollution problem. One of the biggest advances has been the introduction of soy based inks into the commercial printing process.

Besides giving off high levels of VOC’s, traditional inks used for printing are petroleum-based. Soy based ink products, however, are derived from a mixture of soybean oil, pigments, resin and waxes. The VOC levels are greatly reduced, and because the oil comes from soybeans grown in the United States, using soy based ink boosts our economy while decreasing the need for a foreign product such as petroleum. Also, because soybean oil is clearer than petroleum distillates, less pigment is needed to produce the same effect, reducing the overall cost of the ink.

The recycling process is also helped by soy based inks because it can be removed more easily during de-inking than petroleum based products.

Although the environmental and economical benefits of soy based ink printing are reason enough to use them, there are aesthetic benefits as well: soy based inks actually produce brighter, richer colors than traditional inks, which is why they are used in over 90% of US daily newspapers. So while it’s true that traditional commercial printing has been harsh on the environment, the good news is that greener alternatives are making their way into the industry, with soy based ink printing leading the pack.

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