Go Green with Commercial Digital Printing

Many Twin Cities businesses are turning to environmentally-conscious options to fulfill their business needs. While print marketing remains an important way to stay in touch with clients, there are ways to reduce the impact printing has on the environment. One way to do this is to go green with digital printing at Matreks.

What Is Commercial Digital Printing?

Digital printing uses positive and negative charges in the printer’s drum and toner cartridge to transfer a digital image onto the paper. In the digital printing process, the printer does not need to create a master copy from which all other copies are made. Instead, each copy is a “first-run” copy of the original, digital file. For this reason, digital printing is a great choice for businesses with project that involve changing information on each individual copy, like a batch of monthly invoices. Digital printing is an economical choice for short-run projects up to 1,000 copies.

How Is Commercial Digital Printing Green?

Digital printing not only saves money, it also helps save the environment. Since digital printing does not require a minimum amount of copies to make the project cost-effective, businesses are able to print only what they need, reducing waste.

Another major benefit of digital printing is that it uses toner, not ink. Toner is a dry powder used to copy an image, while ink is liquid. The process for making the materials for toner is incredibly efficient. The resin that accounts for 80 percent of the toner powder is made in a lab with 97 percent of materials contributing to the final product, reducing waste.

Other toner materials can be reused in other industries or are the by-products of other industries. For example, magnetite, the iron oxide that carries the electric charges in a toner cartridge, creates a by-product, sodium hydroxide, which can be used by other industries instead of being thrown away. Paraffin, a by-product of the coal and oil-refining industry, is also used in the toner manufacturing process and helps reduce waste.

Since some chemicals used in the toner production process can be harmful, all digital printers are encouraged to recycle their cartridges so they do not sit in America’s landfills.

Digital printing is a cost-effective printing option for Twin Cities businesses that saves paper, time and the environment. If your business would like to go green with its printing needs, call Matreks Printing today at 952-746-4010.