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makeswordswork

Recycled and recyclable promotional materials

For this year's festival, we have made the commitment to explore the true carbon footprint of our printed materials. Print manager Sam Fentiman-Hall discusses the considerations we made.

photo of print materials
Medway River Lit 2024 print materials

In the past, print has had the reputation for not being very good for the environment. It's estimated approximately 35% of trees that are cut down go to make paper, chemicals in printing inks can be toxic, and it takes lots of water to clean and maintain the printing press. There is a mass of scraps, and over matter which are often not re-used, and printing is a very energy consumptive undertaking. The carbon footprint of one sheet of paper is between 2.5g-5g.


But, at the moment, I'd argue very strongly that we still need printed materials. Not everyone has access to electronic devices. What if someone has a 'dumbphone' that can't go on the internet, what if they live in an area with poor internet reception, don't have any credit left, or have run out of battery?


Additionally, the digital processing of an e-only programme doesn't come for free. Taken together, the cloud-based technologies that drive modern mass communications account for 2% of global emissions, which leaves a carbon footprint just as big as the airline industry, (and this will only increase with our digital footprints and integration of electronic and digital assistants and AI into our daily lives). This is already double the pulp, print and paper industry's 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions – the new technology has strode past the old technology, burning a bright fizzing trail of electricity behind it.


As someone who has been involved in printing for over 20 years, there have been a lot of changes and good developments. But of course, now that we know what we're doing to the environment in using this toxic and resource heavy process, there is still more to be done. In the high street, not every commercial printer and print shop uses recycled paper because it's more expensive. It's more expensive because it's a more difficult, lengthy and costly process to make it, and pulp to make recycled paper is less abundant than pulp to make new paper. On average, recycled paper costs about 25% more than non-recycled printing paper. So not every client will be able to afford to use recycled. But looking at it with newly opened eyes - can we, as print clients in this time of climate emergency, actually afford not to?


In Wordsmithery's printed output of books over the last 10 or so years, we've always used FSC-certified (from managed forests), and recycled papers, along with print companies who have ISO 14001 certification (an environmental commitment to their business). This usually involves printing onto recycled paper and card, using the most eco-friendly vegetable inks. As a micro-publisher we only print small print runs of books and one they're gone, if we need to order more, we only order a few more. The aim has always been not to have boxes and boxes of stock under the bed, that are eventually sent for recycling, or landfill.

Another development over the past 20 years, has been the rise of quick turnaround online printing companies, where you might never actually have to speak to another human to order your posters. If you have experience of formatting artwork for print (and even if you haven't, as their helpdesks are usually quite helpful,) these are by far the cheapest way to get your printing done. And quite often they offer pretty fast turnaround too. Of course, the downside is, you don't see a hardcopy proof, or get to feel the paper, so you have to be confident in your design.


So, I set out to find an online company, ideally not too far away to keep the roadmiles down, who could deliver our materials without completely blowing the budget, because, remember, recycled paper is expensive. I was surprised how long it took to find printers who even offered a good choice of recycled paper, at an affordable price. There is a lot of variance between the price for recycled paper, (maybe to do with how much of it they're keeping in stock, I'd guess). Those that did offer recycled papers, tended to specialise in a certain item, so we ended up buying our 100% recycled bookmarks and posters from two different companies, and FSC-uncoated paper programmes, which are easier to recycle, from a third company.


We also experimented with different kinds of recycled paper, to see how they look and feel, for future projects. And we've foregone any sort of lamination as it makes it impossible to recycle currently.


Each of the printing companies we've used have robust environmental policies in place, and make clear what they're doing to make printing more sustainable. Ideally, next year, we'll use the same company for all materials, and from this we'll year add our printed materials into our overall festival carbon footprint.


The whole process has been quite an eye-opener, though. What I was surprised about is how few of the online companies offer recycled paper and how not transparent a lot of them are about it.


I think more companies would start offering recycled papers if we, as the client, start to demand it. And even if it only makes a little bit of difference to your business' overall carbon footprint, I do think it's worth it to seek out the recycled paper and sustainable printers.


As Sir Ben Okri says in Tiger Work:

"Maybe if we all do

Something modest

Then the dead land

Can yield roses again..."




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