Is Isn't Easy Being Green

You may have noticed that I'm on a mission to be the world's most eco-friendly letterpress printer. I'm not just talking about using some recycled paper here and there, a little soy ink, and a couple of CFLs. I'm not talking about greenwashing the hell out of my products just to make my clients feel better about themselves. I want to figure out the real and scientific effects I'm having on the environment, identify specific goals for becoming the most sustainable business possible, and educate my clients with the information I discover.

That said, I have to start from the realization that I create products that are not necessary for life. I don't grow food, I don't make clothes, and I certainly don't build houses. I make really stylin' invitations, business cards, announcements, recycled paper, and other goodies. If (when?) the world goes all Road Warrior, I don't think people are going to be fussing about ink colors and paper coordination for invites to their next gasoline raiding party. When you start down the road of trying to be as eco-friendly as possible, you inevitably reach the conclusion that the ULTIMATE solution would be to not make new products at all. We should all stop driving cars, live in huts, eat from our own gardens, and stop our livestock from farting so much.

So sure, if you consider the extreme solution then I should just throw in the towel all together. However, until we all get mowhawks and road bikes, I maintain that art is a necessary part of culture and society. Creating beautiful things is part of what makes our lives interesting, and that doesn't have to mean that we completely disregard our obligations to the health and safety of others and our planet. So starting from the point that art exists and isn't going away anytime soon, I'm going to try and do it in the best way possible.

Now that I've got my philosophical / tree hugger issues out of the way - onward! You may remember my previous struggles with finding the ultimate in eco-friendly letterpress inks. Currently, I've settled with using a linseed oil based etching ink, which to the best of my knowledge is zero VOC, certified non-toxic, and contains no petroleum or other binders. I've requested the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) for each of the colors I currently use, but so far have only seen one of them. Probably not that big of a deal, since what I've seen so far doesn't shed a whole lot of light. I was hoping the sheets would provide a list of the exact ingredients/components, so I could do my own research on the potential environmental and health effects. I know that these inks have a high degree of pigment, and I also know that sometimes pigments are made of heavy metals. So far I have been unsuccessful in tracking down exactly what's in these inks, and so I'm currently reaching out to all the science nerds I know to see if they have any idea what I can do. My vision is I'll find some fancypants laboratory (like on CSI) where I can send my various items, and they'll spin them around in some machine that will then produce nifty computer charts.

Here are my eco goals regarding letterpress inks:

1. Find fancypants laboratory filled with very sciencey looking people in white coats to do some analytical chemistry on my inks.

2. From these results, find fancypants environmental people to explain what potential effects these inks could have on the environment and the health of people, plants, and animals.

3. Find fancypants ecology people to do experiments with my printed letterpress items, and see what happens when they biodegrade and/or compost.

4. Figure out what the best way is for me to clean and reuse shop rags saturated with letterpress inks. Does it make sense to have them washed? What happens to the waste water, and how much energy does this use? Can I have them recycled? Can I have them composted?

5. Speaking of rags, I need to find some better ones that aren't made of cotton and bleached. I'm almost out of my current supply, so some research in this area is pending.

Expect science nerd updates, specifics on lab coats, heavy metal (PRIEST!!), and worm poop.

Mimi's Organic Exchange

Last week I printed some #10 size flyers for Mimi's Organic Exchange, which is a fantastic organization here in Chicago that facilitates networking between creative people. I designed the flyers as two colors (Grass green and Aubergine purple vegetable based ink), and printed half on Spearmint stock and the other half on Aspen (both 100% recycled, 30% PCW, Processed Chlorine Free, and made with alternative energy sources). They both came out really nicely.




Although I ended up with nice prints, I continue to have problems with uneven inking of polymer plates. This appears to be a relatively common problem, and one for which there doesn't seem to be definitive solution. I'm considering trying out magnesium plates to see if that changes anything.

Are You Curious...

...about what I do when I'm not letterpress printing? Well, one of the (many) other things I do is to run an eco-friendly online gift wrap shop called Olive Paper. I'm putting together new collections all the time, and the most recent is spring 2010's Green Shoots. Here's a shot of a big order I'm packing up:

And a shot of some lovely new tissues I've got in stock:

I'm working hard on only offering eco-friendly options and closing out all the older items that don't make the cut. One of my newest ribbons is cotton, made in the USA and 100% biodegradable (even the spools!). Plus, they're just freakin cute:

Yay!

PS. The boxes I use to wrap up my orders come from Empty Boxes, where you can buy boxes for reuse.

Happy New Year!

Whew...now that all the holiday craziness is over I welcome the calm of January. Time to reassess, re-motivate, recreate, and blog! First up, I'd like to announce my new blog Under The Wild Rose As Weasels, where "A city mouse with a country soul [me] attempts to mitigate the impact of 2 humans, 2 cats, 2 cars, and 2 big ass TVs by implementing realistic earth-friendly changes." It's been a blast so far.

As my first Tweedle Press offering for the new year, I've just made available these lovelies:


That's right, now you can get scrumptious letterpress printed stationery, on sheets that are recycled individually by hand from your own junk mail! Choose from unique designs to be personalized with your name. This is almost certainly the most eco-friendly, extraordinary way to reuse gift wrap and other scrap paper from your home.

I'm really happy with the designs I've come up with for the stationery


Tomorrow I plan to go into production on a few of the things that got pushed to the side during the holidays. I'll continue to release Personal Recycling products, and will be coming up with some spring-y designs soon too.

Pulp & Press Soundtrack: "Hooting & Hollering" (Wild Beasts).

Personal Recycling now available!

Just a quick entry to let all of my lovely blog readers know that Personal Recycling is now available from Tweedle Press. What exactly, you might ask, is this service? You can read the full explanation on my website, but in brief:

When you send your junk mail, used office paper, crumpled gift wrap, and paper packaging off to a commercial recycler, a lot of energy and water are used sometimes along with bleach and other chemicals to make it usable again. If you instead send your materials to Tweedle Press, I will personally make something beautiful (without the use of any nasty stuff) for you to use again. It's true that I use a small amount of electricity for my blender and one big bucket of water, but everything beyond that is entirely human-powered.

Currently I've only got Plain Sheets priced and available for purchase, but very soon you'll be able to get custom letterpress printed good on your personally recycled sheets as well. Just in time for you to send me all the used gift wrap you're about to collect!

Pulp & Press Soundtrack 12/17/09: "Night Time" (The xx).

So Speedy!

So I went in to print on my 8x12 last week, and I decided that with 300 prints at 3 passes each I absolutely HAD to get brave enough to use the motor. Pushing the wheel with every print for all 300 of the Empty Boxes teaser cards (and sometimes an extra push in between for more ink) nearly killed me - but really wouldn't have been possible to use the motor with. I had to firmly slide the inside fluting of the cardboard onto several gauge pins to keep them in place - something that took more time than a quick switching out would have allowed. So anyway, here are a few things I learned:

1. Ye who spends good time on makeready will be greatly rewarded.
I took my time measuring out sheet placement, gauge pin placement, and packing so that when it came time to actually run the (very nice & very expensive) paper through the press, the prints came out really nicely. That was pretty exciting.

2. Kort Adjustable Quad Guides are my friends.
Gauge pins and me, thus far, haven't really gotten along. I finally decided to try some of the ones that Boxcar Press recommends, and they really are pretty sweet. Expensive, and they take a little extra time to get into the tympan, but you really feel like they're going to stay put. Also, it's much easier to adjust them a little without having to unstick and restick little clampy feet that tear up your tympan. Hooray for Kort!

(image from NA Graphics, where I bought the pins)

3. Printing with the motor on, even at speed 3 out of 15, is way faster.
Once I was happy with the quad guides, feeding the paper in and out was a cinch. Occasionally I'd have to push the throwoff lever, whether for more inking or to just give myself a little more time to get the paper in, but I think in all those prints I did I only managed to accidentally print on the tympan once. Not bad. This really makes me feel like an order someday for 1000 of something would be totally doable.

(now available for purchase on Tweedle Press and Etsy)

4. With heavy coverage, even a powerful 8x12 can't get much impression.
Although the red bits of these cards created a good punch, the black printing area was just too heavy to really get into the paper. I suppose this is one of the limitations of a platen press. Maybe someday I'll have a bigger studio and can find myself a nice Vandercook for jobs with heavy coverage.

5. Yes, I use sweater drying racks to dry my prints. What? It works.


And now for few miscellaneous notes:

• Remember the cardboard postcards I printed the other week? Well, the website for Empty Boxes is finally up and you should check it out. This is a new company I'm part of that is trying to help companies reuse as many shipping boxes as possible before recycling or trashing. It's totally eco, and totally neat.
• Next week I'm participating in No Impact Week, which is a shortened version of Colin Beavan's "No Impact Man" experiment. During this week, participants will take a hard look at everything they do in their daily lives the negatively affects the environment, and try to curb as much of it as possible. Hopefully some of the things we learn will turn into habits. Check it out!
• I know I mention them frequently, but The Evanston Print and Paper Shop rocks! They routinely save my butt with last minute plates, paper cutting, and other things. In fact, I'm heading over there today to cut down the aforementioned Cheshire holiday cards.
• Yesterday I added a new product to the Tweedle Press Shop and Etsy Shop: Dead Things / Birdo Coasters. Cute and creepy, makes a great gift!
  
  

Pulp & Press Soundtrack 11/6/09 (when I was printing): "I Was Wrong" (Social Distortion). Mike Ness makes killer music to print by.