Pacific Bindery Services (PBS) is pleased to announce that it has added a new labeling service. Using the LS 450 pressure sensitive labeler, we can now provide high speed, high quality labeling solutions for your jobs.
New LS 450 Pressure Sensitive Labeler:
Application Specifications:
Maximum Width Label Carrier: 120 mm or 4.7 inches Maximum Length: Seems to be unlimited! Call to discuss with PBS. Minimum Width: 3/4” Minimum Length: 1” (less than 1” would need to be tested. Absolute minimum that we would test is 10 mm square)
Accuracy: 1/32” to 3/16” depending on label, size & application
Label Requirements:
For more information, please contact Pacific Bindery Services Estimating or Production Coordinating at 604 873-4291 or 1-888-873-4291
Every Bit Counts: Pacific Bindery Services Environmental Initiatives
We use a significant amount of compressed air to operate the bindery machines and vacuum baling system. This requires compressors, which in turn use filters and lubricating oil. We recycle the filters and also separate the waste oil-water mix condensate. The recovered oil is sent to recyclers and the filtered water is used to water the lawn and for other uses.
Continuous Environmental Improvement
We have established and maintained a program of continuous environmental improvement and a target of zero spills of pollutants. By reducing the volume of its discharge of air, liquid and solid waste, we not only reduce the pressure on landfills and reduce costs, but also help to protect the air we breathe and the life in our waterways.
The CleanPrint BC Process
We’ve completed the CleanPrint BC Environmental Management Plan (EMP) program and have earned the right to proudly display the CleanPrint BC logo. This is a process that begins very much as an awareness and educational journey in to the processes and products used in the shop. The program helped us to complete a comprehensive study of all regulations and to implement best environmental practices.
You may not know but bindery has many unique recycling challenges; think of all the paper, plastic and metal strapping, plastic skid wrapping and containers that are used. For example, because Pacific Bindery Services is at the end of the printing production chain, it ends up with printers’ well-used wooden skids.
At Pacific Bindery Services, we have a commitment to reduce the environmental impacts of our business activities. We believe we have a responsibility for effectively handling and disposing of the resources we’re using; in a sustainable way. This responsibility is often more significant for businesses, since business’ impact on the environment is large.
The protection of our environment is important to us because we are firmly committed to sustainable practices that
At Pacific Bindery, we do our best to economically save materials that can benefit the customer’s job and our building in the long run. Here are several sustainable courses of actions we consistently take with everyday bindery and finishing processes:
Paper – We employ an elaborate system of vacuums to take away paper trimmings from the perfect binders and stitchers. A sophisticated automated baling system compresses the paper waste into bales which are then loaded into waiting trailers. Trim waste from the cutter and folders are collected in metal containers and picked up by a recycler.
Over the course of a year, more than 1000 tons of paper are recycled; reducing waste sent to landfills. This has a significant positive environmental impact.
Plastic Containers – We use a number of glues: remoistenable glue, traditional hot melt, polyurethane reactive, permanent cold glue, and other types of adhesives that come in containers. We have coordinated recycling of these containers with the glue suppliers. We’re also currently working with an aggregator to remove plastic containers that once contained chemistries, such as solvent.
Solvent and Rag Use – You wouldn’t think a bindery would need to use solvent however it is regularly used to clean rollers on the folders and other machines due to the build up of ink and other chemicals that are offset from the printed sheet. To reduce the amount of solvent and shop towels used, we’ve applied a multi-step approach.
Strap and Wrap – We also recycle a large volume of plastic and metal strapping, shrink-wrap plastic and wooden skids. This amounts to 1000 cubic yards of materials that does not head to the landfills.
Pacific Bindery is the only bindery and finishing organization in British Columbia to be CleanPrint BC-certified. We were committed to this program some years ago and were pleased to achieve our certification. Today, the CleanPrint BC program has been halted by lack of funding however the print industry organizations that were certified through the process were pioneers of what is now known as the sustainability movement.
CleanPrint BC is a non-profit partnership comprised of members of the printing industry, including printers and suppliers, as well as representatives from municipal, provincial, and federal governments. The ultimate goal of CleanPrint BC is to support improved environmental management practices in BC’s flexography, screen and offset printing operations. The result is improved protection of the environment and human health while maintaining economic competitiveness. The CleanPrint BC strategy is to develop and provide printers with the tools they need to prepare and support site-specific environmental management plans. Printers, which complete the Environmental Management Plan (EMP), also follow the Best Management Practices (BMP) developed by CleanPrint BC.
Here at Pacific Bindery, we pledge to protect the environment by supporting CleanPrint BC initiatives, following best management practices and promoting an environmental management system as a tool to better control waste and pollution.
The United States of America Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act places regulations and restrictions on lead and phthalate content in plastic on children’s products: such as plastic spiral binding for children’s books.
A number of plastic spiral binding filament and coil suppliers produce materials that comply with CPSIA legislation. Make sure that your suppliers also can confirm through an independent, accredited U.S. lab that all of its products are lead-free and phthalate-free. Ask them to provide you with CPSIA Certificates of Conformity on the products you use to bind your books.
Use consumer safe products in all your bindery and finishing work.
And make sure that you communicate your use of safe products to your customers!
As a trade bindery in the Printing Industry we package a number of our finished products in shrink film. Shrink film can take hundreds of years to biodegrade.
In our ongoing search for environmentally friendly products, we have found a new biodegradable shrink film. It is a polyolefin heat shrink film that degrades over a 3 to 5 year period (as compared to a regular shrink film product that can take hundreds of years in the landfill to decompose).
Sourcing this product in North America was a significant challenge. We had to go global! The product is used in the U.K. and that’s where we first found it; but it is manufactured in France. We tracked it to the U.S. and found a sales office in Eastern U.S. who was handling it. We’re from the West Coast of Canada so we needed to locate a distributor closer to us. We found one in Edmonton, Alberta.
After running some trials (and making some equipment changes), we are extremely pleased with how well the product runs and performs. It has good sealing and shrinkage properties at low temperatures and can run on both manual and automatic equipment.
The film degrades at the end of its useful life: it fragments and oxidizes through the long term effect of light and heat. It then becomes assimilated by the soil and eventually disappears in the landfill, leaving only water, carbon dioxide and biomass.
Do the right thing: use environmentally friendly packaging materials!
I was contacted late last week by a writer hired by the Canadian Printing Industry Sector Council (CPISC). She’s writing content for a role playing game for elementary school children: A Day in the Life … of a Pressman, or Bindery Operator, or Pre-Press Technician. The writer asked for input and I sent her a fairly detailed “day in the life of a bindery operator” activity list.
What resonated for me in putting the activity list together was that the key activities focused on the ability to read carefully, check (and double check), organize, communicate, lead, make decisions, set up and run equipment. Specific equipment knowledge is of course important; but equally important are communication skills, leadership and decision making skills, planning and organization skills. These are attributes we look for in all of our employees (and that we’ve found in the long term employees who work at Pacific Bindery Services Ltd.).
The goal of the CPISC project is to raise the profile of Print as an occupation at a very early age … if children find the industry challenging and fun they will be more likely to want to work in the Printing Industry.
The answer – from a bindery perspective – is that it depends on what binding and finishing processes you want to do with the job; how much ink coverage is on the paper; how quick a turn-around is needed (is there time to properly dry and cure?); will the job need to be handled multiple times (and therefore need extra protection); will the job be shipped long distances (and therefore need more protection); will the job be individually shrink wrapped, polybagged, or inserted into envelopes – or shipped loose?
These are just some of the questions you need to ask before you determine how you need to finish the cover and text pages of a perfect bound book.
Coatings, varnishes and/or laminates are all designed to protect the printed product – and to add visual (glossy or matte) and tactile (touch and feel) elements.
It’s important for designers and printers to recognize that in the perfect binding process all product (both cover and text) travels through nip points, grippers and over/under belts and conveyors.
This travel puts pressure on the sheet that can cause scuffing, marking, and/or scratching – particularly if the ink is not fully dry.
When we receive printed product, we test for scuffing and ink dryness. If we are concerned about the printed product, we contact our customer to let them know and to find out how they’d like to handle it. Sometimes it means that we need to hold the product for an extra day – to dry. Sometimes it means that the cover needs to be protected with a plastic laminate. Sometimes it means that the product needs a UV coating. In all instances, we work with our customer to find the best solution.
Ensuring that you plan for coatings, varnishes or laminates at the beginning of your project will mean that quick turn-around times can be met and will mean that your product will be a ‘perfectly bound’ book at the end of the mechanical perfect binding process.
P.S. This is not an ‘up-sell’ for Pacific Bindery Services – we do not sell coating, varnishing or laminating services.
Have any printers or binderies had a look at the SGP website (http://www.sgppartnership.org)? The SGP has a certification program for sustainable print industry companies: incorporating green business practices, environmental initiatives, corporate social responsibility and the economics of making it work.
