The FUJIFILM Speciality Ink Systems award-winning factory in Broadstairs, UK, manufactures high performance inks for a range of markets, including Uvijet wide format UV inkjet inks, and Sericol screen and flexo inks.   

The company has implemented a number of sustainability initiatives over the last ten years, and more recently the recruitment of Antonina Realmuto as Group Sustainability Director, and Craig Milsted as Sustainability Advisor for the site, has brought about a much greater focus to accelerate change towards more sustainable operations.

The following is an excerpt from the article Stepping up on Sustainability.

Smart cutbacks on solvents

Overall, thanks to the printers we sell becoming more technologically advanced over the years, less ink is required during the printing process. This is obviously a better and more sustainable situation in itself.  

However, you can’t print without ink - it’s the most crucial element of printing. So for the inks that we produce at our factory, previously we would typically use around 140,000 litres of oil-based solvents to clean the vessels used in our ink-making and mixing equipment. 

However, very recently we replaced our oil-based solvent cleaner with an 80% water-based (aqueous) cleaning solution, manufactured by a company called Terrafend (previously Safe Solvents). Coinciding with this, a first-of-its-kind pot washing machine, also supplied by Terrafend, was installed at the factory. 

Suitable for use with the new aqueous cleaning solution, the machine offers a significantly more efficient pot washing solution on our site. The aqueous cleaner and pot wash machine combo makes it possible for us to separate solvent and aqueous waste, and in the future, it could enable us to reuse the pots after they have been cleaned, and then when they are beyond reuse, have the clean plastic shredded and sent for further recycling.