Being ‘Green’ Pays Dividends
Sandy Alexander’s commitment to wind-generated electricity coincides with the company’s decrease in dependence on natural gas. In 2006, at a cost of more than $500,000, the printer replaced two existing afterburners with a highly efficient MEGTEC CleanSwitch regenerative thermal oxidizer, which destroys the emissions generated by its web presses and reuses them as fuel. The RTO is said to achieve an annual reduction of more than 10 million cubic feet of natural gas and save nearly 164,000 kilowatts of electricity per year. According to Chip Stine, senior vice president, as a service for environmentally minded customers, the company can measure and report by job the total VOC output based on the type of ink used, and cite the environmental benefit of using vegetable oil-based inks.
Stine explains that the company has three broad environmental objectives: energy use reduction; reduction in the volume of material it sends to landfill; and outreach to customers, suppliers and the community, including support for nongovernmental organizations like the Rainforest Alliance and Nature Conservancy. Each year, Sandy Alexander establishes corporate goals for clean energy use, recycling and overall reduction of material directed to landfills.
“We try to be as transparent as possible,” he says. “We currently are writing a sustainability report using 2005—before we made our first wind power purchase—as a baseline. We’ll be evaluating electric, natural gas, propane usage, water use and VOC emissions, and will come out with a document before the end of this quarter.”
Each in His Own Way
Environmental activism is not just for the big boys, nor does it require deep pockets and a complex infrastructure to think and act “green.” Murray Print Shop (St. Louis) is a third-generation, family owned printing business with an abiding commitment to the environment that ranges from its use, whenever possible, of recycled-content papers manufactured in North America and vegetable oil-based inks.
