Although waterless printing has been around for a while, it’s mostly been seen as a niche technology, but thanks to greater awareness of environmental issues, more printers are now looking at going waterless

Ask a printer about consumables and they’ll mention things like inks, paper and plates, but conventional printing presses use an enormous amount of water, a natural resource that we are all starting to think about conserving. It may seem strange that water has become such an issue, given that 70 per cent of the planet’s surface is under water, but there is only a fixed amount of water on the planet and growing populations together with climate change has meant that in many parts of the world the demand for water far outstrips the infrastructure to collect, process and distribute that water.

Print buyers are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impact of print. For the most part they understand that print is a more sustainable option than electronic media, but how do they decide which printing method to use? Is conventional offset more environmentally friendly than digital printing? Or is it the other way around?