 |
Basic Information Organization name: Contact:
Membership level:
|
Foresight Design's Jason Phillip recently spoke with Marilyn Jones about the sustainable printing efforts at Consolidated Printing.
Has Consolidated Printing always been an environmentally responsible printing operation?
Yes, since 1973.
That seems like an early date to be thinking about sustainability. What brought you there?
Printing is a marvelous business to be in because you meet so many interesting people. One of my first accounts in 1973 was a high-potency vitamin manufacturer. He knew I was skeptical about the testimonials from his customers that we were printing in his materials, so he offered to help my mother, who couldn’t walk. She began taking the numerous vitamins he prescribed her, and lo and behold, she started walking again.
After that, I started reading magazines like Prevention, and I learned that what you touch and what you breathe really does affect you. I changed my way of eating, and I changed my view of alternative medicine. Then I started looking at the chemicals I used, and I thought, what am I doing with my business? I love the industry, but I can’t continue with these chemicals. So, I invested some time and effort to see how I could make the process safer.
The effort of changing to healthier materials is still ongoing. We just made massive changes here a few weeks ago. As alternatives come along, or we consider different things to do, we implement them. If it works, we keep it. If it doesn’t, we try to find something else. It has been a natural progression. My suppliers knew that if they were going to do something safer, I would test it and work with them to make it better. For example, we were early testers of soy ink, 11 years ago we eliminated alcohol with no substitutes, we did silver recovery for years, and now are totally silver-free. There are many additional chemicals that in the early years we changed or eliminated.
Soy ink is something that typically comes to mind for most people when they think environmentally friendly printing. They also think recycled paper. What else does Consolidated do to make its business a sustainable one?
Soy ink has petroleum in it. It depends what brand you buy as to the percentage of petroleum. We recently tested all-vegetable ink, and have gotten it to work beautifully. That’s what we’re using now.
It’s always been about the chemistry. Things like soy ink, recycled paper, and FSC certification are a bit of a smokescreen, a curtain that can hide the bad things that happen in printing with the chemicals. Printing chemicals include carcinogens, which lead to liver or kidney damage. They can be hard on the employees. They can be hard on the environment if you’re not disposing of them properly. It’s hard on the air if you’re not venting them properly. We’ve done everything we can to purify the chemicals we use.
| What made it possible for you to think in 1973 that you could change the way printing was done? How did you imagine you could print safely and still print well? | |
|
|
We’re still in business, and we’ve grown; so we found out you can do good green printing. I didn’t think of it as green printing. I just called it getting rid of another carcinogenic chemical that could be potentially harmful to my employees. There was no green community back then. I didn’t think anybody was going to care what I was doing. I was just doing it because I knew deep down it was right.
What are the pros and cons of marketing Consolidated as a green company? Do you worry that you might pigeonhole yourself or limit your client base?
We really didn’t advertise our green features until the mid-1990s. It’s not the only part of our business. We have clients that have been with us since the 1970s who have no clue that we’re green, or woman-owned, or union. They could care less. We just handle their printing needs.
I probably don’t do as much marketing as I should in other areas. Time is limited. I find myself marketing more to the green community because I’m participating more in it. It’s a place where people don’t think what I’m doing is strange, so I’m very comfortable in that world. I also learn a lot.
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced as you’ve made your operations more sustainable? Did you lose any business to competitors who use less expensive conventional equipment?
I still do today. It costs more to run this operation. When I complain to my paper salesmen about losing a bid, I hear stories of other printers using regular paper and marking it recycled. Does this happen frequently? I don’t know. Competitively, it’s a challenge.
So many times when people receive estimates, the printers aren’t quoting on a similar product. Is the paper and everything else about the job really the same? What are you actually buying? Every time a green organization goes to a printer that isn’t truly green, they’re telling that printer it’s okay to do what they’re doing: It’s okay not to recycle, it’s okay to get rid of your chemicals however you want. They’re saying the printer doesn’t have to do what Consolidated does to win their business.
I think of it as trying to get people to understand that it’s not a commodity anymore. Will it work to keep doing business on an uneven playing field? I don’t know, but I can’t do this any other way. I can’t go back to using those chemicals.
Have you worked cooperatively with other printers to bring sustainable practices to your industry?
The Great Printers Project was a project that the Illinois EPA started along with other Great Lakes states. Part of the reason for it was that the EPA inspects the larger shops constantly. With the midsize and smaller shops, they don’t have the resources. They were hoping to form a self-regulating relationship with these printers regarding disposal, air quality, all the things in which the EPA is interested.
What I heard about the initial meetings from other printers was not encouraging. Everybody was saying this is impossible; we just can’t do what they’re making us do. They said stay away from it; it’s horrible. I needed to know how horrible it was. How bad were my chemicals? I thought I was doing some things right, but I wanted to know.
One night I sat down with my daughter who works here, and I told her that I was going to call the EPA in the next day. She told me I had to be crazy. I said no, we have find out that everything here is right because that’s what we’re aiming for. We don’t know. We’re just reading the manuals, reading the labels, and researching the chemicals. We called the EPA and they came in with four or five people and spent the day going through files. They said, “You are not only doing everything we require, you are surpassing it.” Then, their print shop called us for a few months after that and asked us how we handled different things, which was such a huge compliment.
As a result, they wanted to name us first to the Great Printers Project because our results were fantastic. I went and spoke to different groups of printers and told them that if you follow this program, you don’t have to worry about having problems with the EPA. The project ended up with 54 printers. Unfortunately, it didn’t make me very popular, being a woman in business telling these printers to clean up their chemicals and possibly pay more per gallon.
| Would you consider Consolidated to be completely sustainable yet? | |
|
We’re close. We’re really close. I would like to get more into alternative energy. I don’t own the premises, or I would have been making more strides in that direction. That’s what needs to be done now. As I see other needs arise, I will be proactive and address them accordingly. |
