The Solution for a Better Tomorrow on Paper

May 23, 2019 Off By Sebastian Reisig

Environmental issues such as climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, resource depletion, and packaging waste demand an urgent and coherent response from the packaging industry. Flint Group partnered up with SOMA and Marvaco to work on an environmental friendly full HD Expanded Gamut Printing (EGP) on paper. At the SOMA Flexo Challenge Conference 2019 held in Czech Republic, the live printing of the print design showcased that sustainability is a top priority with high print quality results.

Thermal Printing Plates and Printing Ink by Flint Group

With the ambition to become the innovation leader in flexographic plates, sleeves and ink solutions, Flint Group addressed this challenge by delivering nyloflex® XPH thermal printing plates, suitable for water based and UV inks. The round top dot plate is processed with the nyloflex® Xpress Thermal Processor. A sustainable easy-to-use system of several components, to reliably deliver a complete solution for lightning-fast plate making and high-end flexo printing. The benefits of 30% less waste, up to 88% reduction in electricity, and a plate processing time of only 45 minutes, result especially in reduction of operating costs, improved productivity as well as excellent print quality. In addition the rotec® CFX Bridge with carbon-fiber structure has been used as a high quality adapter with a long lifetime.  

Flint Group supported as well by delivering TerraCode inks. Designed for eco-green solutions – a hybrid biorenewable system supporting a sustainable environment. TerraCode is developed for all key water-based paper and board applications. TerraCode addresses sustainability and regulatory compliance and provides a renewable solution for printers’ and brand owners’ environmental and sustainable projects.

SOMA CI Flexo Optima 2

SOMA is a Czech Republic based produces flexographic printing presses, slitter rewinders, laminators, plate mounters and die-cutters. SOMAs flexographic printing press Optima 2 dramatically enhances print quality, make-ready times, and running costs and consequently reduces ecological impact. The main focus is to implement sustainable technologies, such as water based ink systems as well as to save time and reduce waste. With the ARUN system the registration and impression is adjusted automatically without any effort of an operator. The result is that jobs get up to speed faster with almost zero feet of setup waste. The SOMA Ink Cartridge system offers printers a means of reducing ink costs by minimizing ink volume and residual waste.

Pre-Press by Marvaco

MARVACO is the leading prepress production company and the biggest flexo plate producer in the Nordic countries. The OATIS brand co-printing from Real Snacks Company was printed at the SOMA flexo challenges 2019 to demonstrate the eco-efficiency of the Marvaco EGP™ (Expanded Gamut Printing). In demo, six different jobs were gathered onto a one sheet and co-printed with Flint Groups water based inks on paper. Marvaco’s GreenerPrintingTM EGPTM repro–plate technology was used resulting a more sustainable printing with high quality and faster production. The original six brand designs were converted from CMYK+6 spot colors to use only CMYKOGV printing within one press run at speed of 400 mpm with the high print resolution of 70 lpcm (178 lpi) on the plate. Moving form spot color printing to EGP™ printing resulted -30% reduction in the number of used colors and also eliminated the wash off of the 6 spot inks. Moreover, it also reduced the total ink consumption in average by -31%. The printing on the SOMA Optima 2 flexo press with Flint Group products together with Marvaco EGP™ reduces the environmental impact and is more sustainable, easy to use as well as consistent from run to run. GreenerPrinting™ EGP™ is a new way making packaging printing eco-efficient!