Strategy 1

21st Century Technology - The Heart of Conservation

Your Choice

What would it mean to you to save up to 3,200 square feet of paper every time you print a short-run job? Imagine covering every square foot of a spacious 5 bedroom home with paper. Now imagine saving that amount of stock every time you send a job to print. In the course of a year you could save enough paper to cover an entire sub-division.

Conservation vs. Recycling

Recycling paper is a great way to support environmental responsibility and sustainability. But doesn't it make greater sense to minimize waste? Consider this: if you use stock with 30% recycled content, but 70% of the stock used for your job is waste, are you really making a net positive contribution to conservation?

Technology Options

There are three generations of print technology:

1st Generation
Until 15 years ago, 1st Generation Film-to-Plate was the only technology available. Camera-ready art was required to create film. The film, in turn, was used to produce plates that were mounted on the press for printing.

2nd Generation
The advent of desktop publishing software meant designers were no longer creating camera-ready art. The next evolution was the development of 2nd Generation Computer-to-Plate technology. Using CtP, digital files are sent directly to a CtP plate-maker. The plates are produced and then mounted on the press.

3rd Generation
The latest development in the evolution of print has been the elimination of the CtP process. Digital files are sent directly from computer-to-press where plates are laser-etched, and the task of mounting and aligning them is eliminated.

Each of these three generations of print technology impacts production time and power consumption.

Press Sizes

Press size significantly impacts both power consumption and paper waste. Three common press sizes, defined by the size sheet printed, are:

40” Press (40” x 28” sheet)
28” Press (28” x 20” sheet0
18” Press (18” x 12” sheet)

Using an 8.5” x 11” page as a standard, a 40” Press can print 8 pages on a single sheet, a 28” Press can print 4 pages, and an 18” Press can print 2 pages.

Waste With a 40” Press

Let's examine the stock wasted printing a short-run (500 – 10,000 page) job on a 40” Press vs. an 18” Press. Printing 8 pages per sheet, a 40” Press will consume 1,070 square feet of paper to print 500 pages, an 18” press, printing 2 pages per sheet, will use only 450 square feet of paper – a savings of 620 square feet of paper on a very short run. For a run of 10,000 pages, a 40” Press will consume 10,892 square feet of paper compared with 7,680 square feet on an 18” Press – A SAVINGS OF MORE THAN 3,200 SQUARE FEET ON A SINGLE RUN – a significant contribution you can make to conservation.

Waste With a 28” Press

There is less waste on a 28” Press than a 40” Press, but the waste is still significant. A 28” Press, printing 4 pages per sheet, will waste 2,600 square feet more paper than an 18” Press printing 10,000 pages. So, simply specifying an 18” Press for your short-run jobs will help you slash the volume of paper wasted on every job you order.

Power Consumption

The volume of waste you eliminate by simply specifying an 18” Press increases as the size of your job increases. On a print run of 100,000 pages, for example, you'll save about 25,000 square feet of stock. Does this mean you should specify an 18” Press for every job you run? Not exactly. You also need to consider power consumption.

Power Factors

Two factors impact power consumption:

“Set-Up” Time, and
“Run” Time

‘Set-Up’ Time

It takes more time, and power, to ‘set-up’ 1st and 2nd Generation presses than 3rd Generation Computer-to-Press technology. Time can vary for different print jobs, but as a ‘rule-of-thumb’ the ‘Set-Up’ for 1st, 2nd and 3rd Generation presses is:

-Press Generation
+Set-Up Time (Minutes)
 st
 nd
 rd

‘Run’ Time

While larger presses, with older technology, take more time to ‘Set-Up’ a print job, they require less time to ‘Run’ the job than an 18” Press. A 40” Press, for example, printing 8 pages on a sheet at an effective speed of 9,500 sheets per hour, can print 76,000 pages an hour. A 28” Press, printing 4 pages on a sheet at an effective speed of 7,500 sheets per hour, can print 30,000 pages an hour. In contrast an 18” Press, printing 2 pages on a sheet at an effective speed of 6,000 sheets per hour, is limited to 12,000 pages an hour.

Total Power Consumption

So, when you compare the total ‘Set-Up’ and ‘Run’ time for 1st Generation technology on a 40” Press, 2nd Generation technology on a 28” Press, and 3rd Generation technology on an 18” Press you're able to calculate total power consumption for various press runs:

500 Pages

Generation	Set-Up (Min.)	Run (Min.)	Total (Min.)
1st	69	.395	69.395
2nd	39	1	40
3rd	8	2.5	10.5

10,000 Pages

Generation	Set-Up (Min.)	Run (Min.)	Total (Min.)
1st	69	7.895	76.895
2nd	39	20	59
3rd	8	50	58

As you can see, an 18” Press equipped with 3rd Generation technology is much more power-efficient than older, larger presses for small print jobs. At 500 pages, our 3rd Generation 18” Press consumes only 15% of the power required by a 1st Generation, 40” Press; and 26% of the power required by a 2nd Generation, 28” Press. What's more, for every Kilowatt it takes to run a press, it takes another Kilowatt to remove the heat generated by the press. So, when selecting print technology, every hour of electric power you save becomes two hours of power saved.

However, you should also note that as you approach 10,000 pages the difference in power consumption shrinks, and you need to begin weighing power savings vs. paper savings.

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Index - Conservation by Design