Printing Tips
Green Printing Tips - 15 Eco-Friendly Ways to Produce Conference Materials
In many situations, printed materials may be the best way to deliver information, grab interest or stimulate action. The following tips will help you make your printed materials greener. Start off slowly and realize that using any of these tips is a step in the right direction.
Tip 1: Consider eco-friendly design elements when designing your printed materials.
- Choose finished sizes for your printed materials that make the most efficient use of standard paper sizes.
- While bleeds (ink “bleeding: off the edge of the printed piece) may look nice they often increase the paper waste stream as larger sheet sizes are needed to produce the bleed effect. Another option is to make these pieces smaller in the first place.
- Minimize ink coverage by eliminating full bleeds or large solid ink areas if possible. Using less ink often means saving press time, paper and money.
- Work with designers & printers early in the process to achieve the most environmentally friendly design.
Tip 2: Print on recycled paper containing a minimum of 30% post-consumer waste.
- 100% is also available but currently costs considerably more and may not be available in all sheet or web roll sizes to meet a variety of project specifications
Tip 3: Use chlorine free papers when possible.
- Ask your printer what they are using to be sure.
Tip 4: Request soy/vegetable based inks for offset printing or low VOC toner when printing digitally.
- Petroleum based inks contain carcinogens known to cause cancer.
Tip 5: Avoid the use of metallic or fluorescent inks.
- These inks contain more harmful elements in the pigments including in some cases, heavy metals, barium, copper and zinc.
Tip 6: Use bio-degradable, varnish or aqueous based coatings when possible.
- For book covers, brochures, flyers or other printed pieces where press varnish or film lamination may have been used.
Tip 7: Minimize page count for printed proceedings, handouts or event handbooks by:
- Placing supporting information or articles that speakers provide online.
- Placing presentation slides 3-up, 4-up or even 6-up per page.
- Reducing margin space when possible - e.g. using ½” page margins on a 200 page book versus ¾” margins will reduce the page count to approximately 180 pages.
- Use a font size that is readable yet the smallest possible for your audience. Generally 10 pt is good for Arial or Helvetica while 11 pt is acceptable for Times New Roman.
- Print on both sides of the sheet for handouts or books.
Tip 8: Request online proofing of files whenever possible.
- With today’s technology this should suffice for most printed materials.
Tip 9: Choose recycled binding elements.
- For lay flat binding choose a recycled plastic coil. Some contain up to 80% post consumer waste plastics – colors are usually black or dark green.
Tip 10: Deliver your materials to the printer electronically.
- This can be via FTP sites or email.
Tip 11: Print only what you need.
- Request the shortest turn around times possible that allow you more time to understand your registration numbers and thereby, order more accurate quantities.
- Print only what is needed for your event registrants and a few extras.
- Utilize on-demand production to fulfill event publications post-event and for publications that that have an unknown demand, short shelf life or frequently changing content such as manuals, study guides, or policy statements.
Tip 12: Target your marketing materials to appropriate segments of your audience.
- This reduces the printed quantity needed on some pieces. In most cases, exhibitors or suppliers don’t need marketing materials from other suppliers coming up to your event. Segment and clean your mailing lists to avoid this.
Tip 13: Or… go “paperless."
- Limit the use of printed pre-event marketing materials when possible by using email or enhanced features on event websites.
Tip 14: Instruct recipients that your printed pieces can be recycled.
- Tell them it can be recycled or describe how to recycle it when they are done with it. Even plastic and wire binding elements can be easily removed from books thereby making the entire publication recyclable.
Tip 15: Request recycling containers and methodology for your events.
- Many venues will help you go green by placing recycling containers throughout the meeting facility. This is a very visible demonstration of your greening efforts.
