Taking the spin out of green – a printer’s perspective

Printers are greener that they are given credit for, says Linda Vij of Centrum Printing in Sydney. Now, she is calling on the industry to shout out just how green it is.

I have been in the printing industry for 17 years with Percy Vij, director of Sydney-based, Centrum Printing. The industry is proactive and vital, making up over 10 per cent of Australian manufacturing. Printers now use vegetable inks and offer paper recycled or guaranteed from renewable wood. They have cut production-related waste such as computer-to-plate proofs, replaced film and recycle more containers and waste.  Increasingly, printers use international criteria to limit impacts.
 
Most Australian paper is imported (an environmental cost). More local milling can mean higher production standards and replanting of trees than usual at many overseas sites (our timber plantations are up 50 per cent in 10 years). Wood is biodegradable and renewable. Developed nations have a quarter more trees than in 1900. Eucalypt farms in Brazil and Indonesia now curb demand on rainforest.

IT devices use power, just sitting. IT devices use energy whenever opened or emailed. An hour of online reading outputs 226 grams of C02.  A 700-page document burnt on CD outputs some 300 grams. Yet, it takes only 85 grams (maximum) to print and can be read repeatedly with no impact! The printing industry should be shouting these facts from the rooftops.
 
The nuclear industry has billions of dollars at stake in gaining a “green” status. Appeal to India and China is clear, given huge energy needs. Technology for new nuclear plants is expected to stop full-scale meltdowns. But energy costs to set up or close plants are high. Long after memory of Japan’s big quake of 2011 fades, many will die by complications via radiation due the effect on plants. Indonesia still plans to build plants near major quake fault lines. And greater mining of nuclear ore is fodder for terrorists or rogue authorities at large.
 
Australian scientist, Tim Flannery, says oil and nuclear interests have long diverted public policy off solar energy. But NASA has just started creation of natural gas and other fuel via sun with dioxides. Deserts of WA and the Sahara, etc, have huge potential.

Green business isn’t a flat contradiction. The ISO (International Standards Organization) is clearly raising standards (via accreditations) in most Australian industries. Some industries not thought green, are on the way.

The term, Minister For Climate Change, is ideology. Scientists are split on causes of climate change but say it’s aeons-old.  Ironically, focus on manmade climate change and carbon tax, may detract from focus on broad human impacts in nature and cut private base for green investment.
 
Governments have largely neglected transport, planned obsolescence of goods, deforestation, soil erosion, organic quality of soil, metallic pollution, plastic waste, GM contamination, impact of highly processed food and over-drugging. There are complex environmental (and personal) costs.
 
Wireless for broadband makes national hardware seem defunct. Military industry isn’t adequately noted as anti-green. We could have saved resources by banning top loading washers; and mandating separate water meters, water tanks and solar panels at most new units or buildings years ago!
 
If water or power is scarce, public control is a vital socialism. Governments echo Big Bad Capital by selling our assets for quick cash. NSW has also wasted much water by poor pipe upkeep and favours high energy desalination. Oddly, Greens leader, Bob Brown, backed the Murray Darling Basin scheme allowing foreign buying of water rights. China, etc is also buying up Australian farmland and mining concerns (we lack reciprocal rights in China).  Why shun our natural bounty?
 

Polls note great public scepticism on climate change yet Gillard’s government claims a mandate on carbon tax! It seems hypocritical given gross government neglect. If carbon tax is about guiding choice, why not fully balance it by incentives or cutting other taxes? High tax drives income demands. Many working mothers are already in servitude and supports (cars, crèches, etc) are anti-green.

Often “green” simply isn’t. Corn, which North American interests promote as the prime source of ethanol for fuel, causes major loss of forest and food crops in this context. Corn grows well in North America but sugarcane (in which Africa, Asia and South America have comparative advantage over North America) can yield five times more ethanol!

One fact is being largely ignored: the worst pollution is by early, not advanced industrial economies. Manufacturing underpins our service industries and makes socialist’s cafe lattes possible. If we squash our manufacturing base, we may drive industry offshore. And we may also face huge consumer and bank debt by trying to keep prosperity lacking a basis (with carbon tax raising inflation and interest rates, as a triple bind). That’s not a future most Australians envisage for future generations.