PrintingNews.com

As paper recovery reaches an all-time high in the United States, the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) honored a school, university, business, and community for their outstanding paper recycling efforts.

The 2008 AF&PA Recycling Awards were presented during the industry's 131st Annual Paper Week, March 30-April 1, at The Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Also announced at the event, which attracted more than 1,000 attendees, was the fact that a record 56 percent of the paper consumed in the United States was recovered for recycling in 2007.

According to AF&PA President and CEO Donna Harman, "It will take the kinds of innovative and creative programs we celebrate today to reach the new 60 percent recovery goal set by the industry for 2012."

"When businesses, communities, and schools commit to environmentally sustainable programs and actions, great things happen. Record-high paper recovery is an outcome of such efforts, and we are pleased to recognize the contributions of our award winners to our success and progress as an industry," said Patrick J. Moore, chairman and CEO of Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. Award winners recognized include:

• AF&PA School-Wide (K-12) Recycling Award—Pasco County, Florida. The District School Board of Pasco County works in creative ways with students, teachers, and administrators at the county's 76 schools to promote and measure recycling success. In 2007, Pasco County schools collected 1,267 tons of paper products for recycling, helping the county save more than $135,000 in solid waste disposal costs.
• AF&PA College & University Recycling Award—Georgia Institute of Technology. Since the recycling program began at Georgia Tech in 1996, recycling has been successfully integrated into virtually all components of campus life. Last year, the school recovered more than 376 tons of paper products for recycling.
• AF&PA Business Leadership Recycling Award—Boise Inc.'s Jackson, Ala., paper mill. The mill has its own recycling facility where it processes 120,000 tons of recovered paper each year. Employees operate a Recycling Road Show, going into local schools for hands-on demonstrations. The company also funds in-school recycling programs in two local counties.
• AF&PA Community Recycling Award—Brevard County, Florida. As a result of a variety of creative programs including partnerships, contests, and presentations that reach more than 10,000 residents annually, the community collected 33,341 tons of paper for recycling in 2006 making it one of the top 10 counties in the state for materials recycled per capita.

Creating Harmony Between Paper and Ink
By Ken Ferguson

In many situations, printers have little discretion in the types or grades of substrates on which they print. When accepting an order that specifies a type of stock you haven't used before in a particular application, it's a good idea to send a sample of the paper or substrate to the ink company before ordering ink. Substrates differ in their coatings, absorption rates, shade or color, surface conditions, weight, opacity, and brightness, and all of these features can affect the way the ink lays down—or doesn't. Following are some key paper characteristics that will affect ink performance:

• Coatings Types. A printer can buy a Litmus pen for a few dollars to test for acidity or alkalinity. If the coating is acidic, you will need a faster drying ink formulation. If the coating is alkaline, water-fighting varnishes and resins can be introduced into the ink.
• Absorption Rate. A K&N test will determine the absorption rate compared to a standard stock. Using the K&N test, a special dye is placed on the test sample, and also on the standard stock. After three minutes, the dye is wiped clean and checked. The darker the residue on the sample versus the residue on standard stock, the more absorbent the substrate.
• Paper Shade. The color of the ink is altered by the shade of the paper. The ink must either be formulated as an opaque to hide the stock, or color-matched using the substrate color in the background.
• Paper Weight. The weight of the paper is a consideration in relation to ink tack. Higher tack inks require more splitting force, lower tack inks split easier. Higher tack ink holds a sharper dot.
• Paper Opacity. An opaque ink is necessary to hide imperfections in the substrate. Inks used on substrates with a higher degree of these brighteners will shift colors compared to a stock that does not contain brighteners.

—Ken Ferguson is technical director, USA, at Van Son Holland Ink Corp., a global printing ink manufacturer.