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| Posted on 3/11/08 at 06:55 AM | |
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The regulatory issues are about to hit all of us in this industry very hard. You just don't know it yet. I urge all printers to check into the regulations and enforcement from their state environmental commissions. The big boys....offset and flexo...have been working under constraints for years (just like California). I just recently moved from Texas to the Northeast. In Texas, the TCEQ (Texas commission for environmental quality) is the governing body. They have recently been grouped togeher with the North Texas water district and the city services like waste water, cross connection and ground water contamination inspectors...to report pretty much directly to the EPA. What is happening is this: Texas is under pressure (like a lot of other states) to clean up everything from waterways and water tables to the air....or lose federal why funding. They have lots of resources. For instance, did you know: (1) Every time you buy a product that has controlled chemicals (VOC's)there is required documentation sent by the vendor or manufacturer to your local equivalent of Texas's TCEQ....always. In this manner they know exactly where every pound of smog inducing VOC goes to. (2) This information is tabulated to group business'e into pollution categories. When you reach a certain "tonnage" per year of emmission, they require you submit TONS of paperwork. You have to justify where every pound of solvent/VOC goes. If 100% of it goes into a product...good deal. But if you are a solvent ink printer, roughly 45% of every gallon goes straight to the air. If you have air scrubbers/distillers and can recover all of that and prove that it is not going outside (called a transient emmission)...good deal. If not...they start calculating. (3)In Texas, if you hit 5o tons of VOC emmissions per year you are a "title 5". That means an afterburner on the roof (plastisol and UV)...at about $1.5 million, or a solvent distiller for a solvent ink printer (about the same cost). (4) In all cases if they are looking at you...you have to have control of your waste streams. VOC filled rags have to be disposed of properly...by someone certified. Scrap ink must be separated and certified as to type before throwing in the landfill. If you get in trouble...everyone will come to see you...groundwater inspectors, cross-connect and wastewater. Sound like a little much? It already exists and has been for decades. Its just that most of us are too small to be caught in the spotlight. And...for the most part...small shops ARE the problem. The big boy shops have been tightly regulated for a long time. They are not the big polluters unless they have been "grand fathered" into an air quality district. But, most plants that buy less than ten tons of VOC per year are not even seen by the system. This includes drycleaners, film developers, everly little mom and pop shop, auto body shops etc. Multiply those little "ten-tinners" by say...25,000 or so in a city like Dallas....and all of them unregulated at all...and you have the crux of the problem. Bear in mind that a ton of VOC is not just 2000 lbs of the stuff. Chemicals are also classified partly by how many tons of air each ton of chemical actually destroys. Stuff like Benzene, Hexane, heptane etc....are counted as more. I find that the average small print shop is more of a polluter than they really know, because they don't really know whats in their chemicals and do not track their waste. Mysuggestion is always...start doing SOMETHING now...wether you know exactly the best thing to do or not. It has been found that when the authorities start to crack down and they find you at least were "trying" to do something, they are much more lenient. Sorry for the length. Ray | ||
 
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