Plastic Coils is, unfortunately, one of the things we can’t recycle today. Plastic coiling is preferred over other binding options such as perfect binding because of its ability to lay flat without much effort and the ability to flip a book 360 degrees without damaging the spine.

A company in the U.S., MyBinding.com, is now carrying a new Eco-line recycled plastic coils. The coils are 100% recycled from scrap coils and are remanufactured in different pitches and sizes. The coils are still made from PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) and only comes in black. Speaking with Jeff McRitchie from mybinding.com, Jeff told me that the coils are made at a plant by collecting odds and loose ends of coils currently, melted, refabricated and sold to dealers for commercial use.

Historically, it was difficult to recycle coils. But a company in Brussels, Solvay SA’s R&D Center, has come up with a process called Vinyloop ® to recycle or upcycle coils. The process is done in 6 steps:

1. Composite waste is collected and brought to their plant in either Ferrara, Italy or Chiba, Japan. The material goes through cleaning (washing), increasing of surface area by cutting, grinding, and milling, and a homogenization step.
2. In a dissolution chamber, a solvent called methyl ethyl ketone dissolves the PVC and its additives. Anything that cannot be dissolved will be removed later.
3. The separation of the insoluble materials are filtered in the next tank.
4. In order to yield pure PVC material, the composite product is stripped of the solvent in a precipitation stage. Precipitation of the dissolved PVC at this stage allows the manufacturer to integrate more additives for other characteristics such as flexibility and strength.
5. The solvent that is evaporated condenses in its original chamber and is ready for another batch of material. This allows the solvent to be re-used 99.9% of the time.
6. The drying stage comes last. The aqueous solution of PVC is dried and the water is filtered to remove impurities. The new PVC is called R-PVC (remanufactured PVC) formed in pellets for ease of use. In the case of plastic coil binding, the pellets are melted and formed into coils.

Unfortunately, these coils are only available from MyBinding.com right now. You can contact Jeff McRitchie at jeff@mybinding.com with any questions or order information.

A lot of people don’t know we have remoistenable glue services here at Pacific Bindery Services. It is a service we added a few years ago to increase our ever-growing list of services we provide to our customers. The “old-fashioned” way of creating mailers is to print a piece, have it folded and include with it a printed envelope. But today, envelope prices are only rising, so a lot of printed pieces are turned into “returnvelopes”. At PBS, we can fold, score, perforate and apply three stripes of remoistenable glue to a piece all in one pass! Below are some technical specifications provided by our very own Larry Worfolk – Customer Service Superstar (Supervisor).

Remoistenable glue is a line of glue which is dry on the finished product and which activates when moisture is applied to seal the product. As it is an inline process on Pacific Bindery’s folding equipment, we have the ability to remoist glue, perforate, apply cold glue, slit and/or fold.

Specifications are subject to change without notice.

* Good adhesion of remoistenable glue on finished products will produce ‘fibre tear’ when the product is pulled open. Make sure important information on the printed piece (check off boxes, signatures, etc.) is positioned away from the glue strip.

There are two main types of remoistenable glue: 1) water soluble cold glue and 2) hot melt extruded glue. The type that Pacific Bindery Services uses is the hot melt extruded glue that offers benefits of running the equipment at faster speeds and does not allow additional moisture to be introduced to the sheet. As well, this glue allows the application of a thinner film of glue, causing less build-up. As the application of the strip is computer-controlled by solenoids, Pacific Bindery has the ability to start and stop the glue line with excellent precision and can also product a ‘stitched’ line of glue if required.

An important note: Hot Melt extruded glue is NOT laser printer compatible.

Remoistenable glue does not adhere properly to printed surfaces. Remoist glue areas need to be free of ink and must be free from varnishes, laminates and/or other coatings. The corresponding area that the strip will adhere to must also be free of ink and coatings.

Storage of finished products must be in a cool and dry environment. If stored in a hot or humid environment, the remoistenable glue may be activated.

We do not recommend offline cutting through a line of remoist glue for three primary reasons:

1. The build-up from the glue causes knife drag, creating different sized cut sheets;
2. Product would have to be cut in extremely small lifts to prevent stock tearing to either side of the glue line;
3. Greater wear on the cutting blade.

Please contact our production department at 604.873.4291 prior to producing the job for remoistenable gluing to determine overs requirement.

During my trip to Japan a couple of months ago, (Wow! It’s been that long?) I learned a lot about Japanese technology and every day life just by staying in Tokyo alone. Printers always talk about how the internet and technology is taking over print and print will become obsolete one day. However, in Japan, they have figured out a way to integrate print with technology using a new two-dimensional code in every day marketing pieces.

Bar codes are already very popular in our every day lives. From supermarket groceries to book store magazines, bar codes encrypt information in a small area. However, as more and more information become available, people are looking for an alternative to store more information and more character types that won’t take up more space than it does right now. QR is short for Quick Response and the technology was developed by Denso Wave in Japan and was released in 1994. It has gained international acclaim in Asian countries and is now moving its way into North America.

Advantages of QR Codes

Capacity

Unlike barcodes with information only in one direction, the QR Code is a two-dimensional code with information stored on the vertical and horizontal direction. As a result, the QR Code can hold up to 7089 Numeric data, 4296 Alphanumeric data, and 2953 Binary data. Compared to barcodes that can only hold approximately 20 digits, the QR Code is far superior to the traditional barcodes.

Footprint

QR Codes can hold the same amount of information as traditional bar codes but in one-tenth of the space it takes for barcodes. For an even smaller printout size, there are Micro QR Codes available. The symbol size ranges from 21×21 (Version 1) to 177×177 (Version 40) and grows by 4 modules/side.

Dirt and Damage Resistant

QR Codes can be restored even if the symbol is damaged or dirty. Up to a maximum of 30% of the data can be restored.

Readability

QR Codes can be read in any direction thanks to the position detection patterns. These patterns are located on three corners of the symbol and it helps reduce background interference. In addition, a single QR Code can be divided into multiple data areas then reconstructed as a single symbol when needed. This allows the user to print up to 16 symbols in a more narrow printing area.

Standardization and Use

On June 2000, The QR Code standardization received approval from ISO International. The QR Code System can be generated using QR Code Printers and software to generate the code. There are scanners that are designed for a variety of applications. Cellular phones are the most common form of QR Code scanners used in Asia as teens capture QR Code information from posters of their favourite Rock Star’s upcoming concert to advertisements on the Subway. The uses for QR Codes are limitless, groceries stores print it on their receipts, marketers print it on their ads to increase interest, and stores print it in their ads to generate maps and hours of operations. Honestly, this is such an exciting technology that I can’t wait for Canada to catch up on it!

Here are some samples of QR Codes Usage in Japan

McDonald’s in Japan Use of QR Codes

Disneyland Advertisement Using QR Codes

Courtesy of http://blog.cliffano.com/2009/05/18/qr-code-usage-in-japan/

Survey Results of QR Codes Usage in Printed Materials Japan

http://whatjapanthinks.com/2005/09/26/qr-codes-extremely-popular/

Disclaimer: Most of the information used for the blog post was drawn from the website http://www.qrcode.com/ developed by Denso Wave. Please visit their site for more information.

Vancouver is known to be one of the most environmentally friendly cities in Canada if not the world. We have a blue box system, an excellent chain of Return-It depots and even our yard trimmings are separate from our trash. Then I read an article last year that talked about the crash of the recycling market in B.C. and it got me worried* (link here). Although this article only talks about the decreased appeal of plastics and glass, it won’t be long before they tell us we have to start paying to recycle our paper as well.

Nakabayashi Co. is a leading Japanese manufacturer of bookbinding machines, office products, and baby car seats (not sure how that’s related). The latest invention to come out from Nakabayashi Co. is a new and innovative machine that turns your every day paper into….toilet paper!

Talk about the savings! At our office, we get our 36-pack 2-ply toilet paper from Costless for $27.99. In a day and age where businesses are trying to pinch their pennies, this would be quite the savings for businesses big and small.

Unfortunately, the technology has to be refined. With 1800 sheets of 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper, it will only produce 2 rolls of toilet paper. And there’s no indication of whether it’s one-ply or two! The price tag is rather hefty for such a technology as well. The unit price for this new machine is a cool $95,000!! Distribution has already begun in Japan this month and their target is to sell 60 units in its first year of production. Maybe as the technology gets refined, we’ll start seeing people bring their waste paper to the recycling depot and walk out with toilet paper. In the meantime, we’ll continue printing on both sides of the sheet and make sure none of our paper waste goes into the garbage can.

*Note: Of course, immediately after I posted my entry, Business in Vancouver talks about a 400% increase in mixed paper value. The article can be found here.

I was travelling in Tokyo just over a month ago. As I am in the bindery business, I often look out for cool and interesting magazines or books. In addition to looking at how well (or how terribly) the book is bound, I love looking at the ads in the magazines as well.

I came across this ad from Axe (the deodorant that’s a spray) and it totally blew my socks off!

This is what the ad looked like from the first page. But if you look closer…

The bottles come out! In addition, the bottles are all scratch and sniff so you can experience the new scent without purchasing it.

Beneath each bottle is an attractive young girl with her reaction to your scent.

Now I’ve brought this ad back to the shop and talked to the guys here. Most of their reactions have been, “Cool!” although we’re not too sure how it’s done. I thought it would be a cool thing to show you how companies market themselves in other parts of the world.

If you take a look at the barcode on the bottom right there, I’ll be talking more about it on my next post!