BELTZ Grafische Betriebe has set itself the goal of manufacturing products in a climate-neutral way. Our new processless printing plates are part of the renewal. Join us on the road to a green future.
Environmental protection through processless printing plates
The transition to climate-neutral print products is made possible by our new, process-free printing plates, with which we actively contribute to climate protection.
👉 This saves us 550,000 liters of water and 6,700 liters of chemicals per year.
👉 The project was launched at BELTZ Grafische Betriebe in March 2021 and involves converting plate imaging from wet printing plates to processless plates.
👉 With our measures, we achieve considerable savings in water, chemicals, residual chemical disposal, rubberization and Energy. In addition, all aluminum panels are recycled.
With the same exposure productivity as conventional printing plates, both costs and labor are reduced and our ecological footprint is improved. 🦶🌱
What are processless printing plates?
With this plate, known on the market as a “process-free” plate, the plate layers are hardened according to the desired pixels. These areas of the negative plate then absorb the ink during the printing process and transfer it to the paper via the blanket cylinder. Non-printing layers are no longer washed out and cleaned in a developing bath with chemicals, but only removed in the printing press by drawing the ink with water. The layer underneath absorbs the water and therefore cannot take on any color.
✅ This ensures a high quality standard of offset printing and saves on chemicals at the same time.
What does the use of processless printing plates mean for the environment?
This technology not only eliminates the need for chemicals in the pre-press stage, as was necessary with conventional printing plates, but also significantly reduces water consumption. The process of washing out the printing plates in the developing machine is completely eliminated, and no precious drinking water is used or contaminated. In the old development processes, a lot of water was used every day to wash out the printing plates, and chemical substances contaminated the waste water. The chemicals had to be specially disposed of. Thanks to this new development, production waste and packaging in the form of canisters are now also a thing of the past.
Any questions?
Feel free to contact us if you have any further questions about our processless printing plates and the possibilities they offer.
