Flint Ink has removed all mineral oils from its sheetfed paste inks, a move that enhances the environmental credentials of its products and also complies with increasingly stringent legislation.
The company has started to phase out the use of mineral oil in favour of renewable, vegetable based, alternatives from products which have continued to use these oils, the K+E branded process series for example. The use of more environmentally friendly raw materials will make the packaging easier to recycle says the company.
It also says that there will be no detrimental impact on performance. A spokesman for Flint says: “The replacement vegetable oil based ink series have, as a minimum, the same properties like rub resistance, drying, setting, gloss etc and in some cases even better press performance compared to the previous mineral oil based series.”
While there is a commendable sustainability element to the Flint decision, there is also a stick. The French government has prohibited the use of inks containing more than 1% mineral oils from packaging as of 1 January 2022 (later pushed back to 1 January this year) and from unsolicited advertising material from 1 January this year. The ban will be extended to all print, regardless of print technology used, from 1 January 2025.
The prohibition applies to print and printed packaging produced outside the country if it is to be distributed in France. This has already had an impact on printers in neighbouring countries. Druckhaus Mainfranken, which operates Flyer Alarm, the largest European online printer, has changed its production methods to comply with the legislation. It has stated: “ We can therefore confirm that the printed products delivered to France are printed with inks with a total content of MOAH (Mineral Oil Aromatic Hydrocarbons) of less than 1% in relation to the weight of the ink.
“This declaration applies to both offset printing inks and digital printing inks and is not tied to the printing process.”
The prohibition order has prompted something of an outcry with Intergraf claiming that the order has created legal uncertainty for printing companies in Europe, particularly gravure printers wanting to export to France as the position of the gravure process, used for packaging as well as publication print is unclear.
This is because toluene, the key solvent used in gravure, is chemically similar to mineral oils. However, its use is not to be restricted, according to the European Rotogravure Association, because the solvent is removed during printing and is not present beyond the threshold in the finished printed product.
Regardless, Intergraf calls for a rapid reassessment of the impact of the change on the printing industry, suggesting that the measure runs counter to the smooth functioning of the European single market.
However, the action by Flint to remove all mineral oils from its inks suggests that, de facto, products that do not meet the French standard will be withdrawn from the market.
What is possible for litho printing, and this affects only sheetfed paste inks as web offset and UV inks use different formulations, may not be as easy for some digital technologies.
