On the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990, Greg Barber, president of Greg Barber Company, an environmental printer with plants in Lincoln Park, Lyndhurst and Fairfield, decided to merge his paper and printing businesses. His inspiration, he says, was coverage of Earth Day events. “I saw 100 middle school children celebrating Earth Day,” says Barber. “Coupled with Connie Chung mentioning the night before on TV that 60 percent of the landfill problems are due to printing and paper waste. I was hooked.”
Barber’s clientele is mainly environmental firms or firms wanting to be environmental. He says that the post popular products are cover stock for making post-cards and business cards and copier paper.
The most recent printing breakthrough is tree-free paper, made from anything other than tree fibers.
Greg Barber Company offers hemp, kenaf, old money, bamboo, sugar cane, banana, mango, coffee, yupo, lemon and denim. a waterproof, tear-resistant tree-free paper line made from rocks and minerals that uses 20 to 30 percent less ink than typical printing. TerraSkinTM can be used in products requiring added strength, such as brochures, flyers, magazine inserts, high-end shopping bags and water-proof pressure sensitive labels.
Barber considers 100 percent post-consumer waste paper to be a tree-free paper, because it was produced from previous paper stock and does not involve the production of another product. One hundred percent PCW paper prevents the further addition of waste to over-crowded landfills. Barber sells 70 to 85 percent of his jobs on 100 percent PCW paper.
“The quality is comparable to 30 percent PCW or non-recycled paper,” says Barber. “It is 96 brightness, which is bright white.
“My cheaper version of 100 PCW paper, Enviro, costs the same or lower than the cheaper recycled grades. I sell a lot of it.” Stationery, brochures, flyers and almost any other print projects can be printed on 100 PCW paper.
Many companies with a PCW of 60 claims to be 100 percent recycled, but this is not true. A company with a 60 PCW is, in reality, only 60 percent recycled, and the other 40 percent comes from post-consumer paper, or paper made from new tree pulp. Only a paper with a PCW of 100 can claim to be truly 100 percent recycled.
Incorporating technology into printing through digital printing is gaining widespread popularity. Barber describes digital printing as 100 percent non-toxic toner-based printing that is electronically sprayed onto the paper. Digital printing avoids the use of film and chemicals, which are used in the normal printing process.
He says this is cost effective and allows customers to spend a little more money on rag content, tree-free lines of paper and more expensive recycled papers.
This is different from another environmentally friendly resource, soy and vegetable-based inks, which are used in offset printing where there are blankets and plates. This process, he describes, involves inked plates that are transferred to the blanket, which transfers to the paper.
Chlorine-free paper, which avoids the use of chlorine to whiten paper, is an environmentally friendly alternative to bleached paper.
“Paper is bleached to make it white,” says Barber. “Bleach uses chlorine and this is harmful to fish and wildlife and to us. Chlorine-free is bleach made from oxygen or hydrogen peroxide. There are no dioxins, which cause cancer, coming out of chlorine-free bleach.”
Once all papers and inks are decided, customers can choose to place one or more emblems on their print job, to show the readers what smart choices the customer made when printing. Such emblems include the 100 percent PCW, 100 percent non-toxic toner, the Smart Wood, Forest Stewardship Council, Wind Energy or BioGas and Chlorine Free Products Certified.
In the future, Barber says he “plans to continue educating people on the environmental terms and best papers and print processes to use.”
