Expanding further its environmental sustainability initiatives, HP(NYSE:HPQ) has announced developments that help reduce the environmental impact of HP Indigo digital prints. HP Indigo prints are fully recyclable and can be placed in normal recycling collection. Deinking, or removing ink from paper fibers, is one of the key steps in the paper recycling process for manufacturing recycled Graphic Arts papers.
Over the last few years, HP collaborated with a range of industry and academic deinking experts to gather lab-scale, pilot-scale and mill-scale deinking data that verify HP Indigo prints can be deinked in a typical graphic art paper deinking mill configuration.
The trials were held at the Voith Paper Fiber Systems Technology Center in Ravensburg, Germany for its near-mill-scale equipment, creating a realistic simulation of a standard graphic art deinking mill, including drum pulping, two flotations and one disperger. An important feature of the trial was that disperger energy typical of industry mills was used. A detailed report from the pilot trial will be published in the near future.
"The results of the pilot-scale trials show that printed paper from HP Indigo digital presses is compatible with typical graphic arts deinking mills even at levels higher than what likely would be encountered. Along with results from the Arjowiggins deinking mill trials, these latest results show that HP Indigo users can continue to feel confident that HP Indigo prints can be recycled back to high-quality graphic arts papers," said Roy Eitan, Director & General Manager, HP Indigo and Inkjet Digital Press Solutions, Graphics Solutions Business, HP Asia-Pacific and Japan.
As a part of HP's ongoing commitment to environmental sustainability, HP Indigo introduced improved ink cartridge packaging for the HP Indigo 6000 and 7000 series Digital Presses. The new cushioning tray is made of 100-per cent recycled, molded pulp and is 100 per cent recyclable. Users can now dispose the cushioning tray with the ink cartridges cardboard box.
