FUJI IS PRODUCING THE WORLD’S GREENEST litho plates thanks to environmental controls, renewable energy, extensive recycling and reuse policies at its Tilburg plant in Holland.
The plant has switched to wind power for 20% of its energy needs, captures and reuses water, the heat from a co-generative thermal oxidiser is used to generate additional electricity from waste solvents which will be used to power the newest of three plate coating lines. This will cut CO2e emissions by 5,500 tonnes a year.
THE PS-10 LIINE IS DESIGNED TO PRODUCE any of Fuji’s low-chem family of plates including its new PRO-T3 on press processed plate. This is the first time the plate has been produced outside Japan and will improve availability while also giving it the lowest carbon footprint of any plate on the market.
It will also produce the new generations of plate that Fuji intends to introduce at Drupa. There are no details about the specifications of these at present, but they will be based on sound environmental principles.
THE TILBURG PLANT IS ONE OF FOUR PRODUCTION locations worldwide and will supply Europe, Africa and India. Its US plant will supply customers in the Americas, while factories in Japan and China supply the fast growing Asian markets.
The company aims to make the site carbon neutral, a vision marked when Fujifilm Corporation president Shigetaka Komori and Prince of Orange HRH Prince William-Alexander created an impression of their footprints in green clay.
AS WELL AS CUTTING CO2 EMISSIONS, the site reuses 13% of generated waste, recycles 68% and regenerates 18% leaving just 1% to be disposed of. It is investigating ways to reuse waste water in the production process and to replace natural gas with bio generated gas.
Fuji senior vice president Ryuta Masui says: “It is not only the way in which we manufacture our products that is important but also the products themselves. We aim to manufacture both processless and low chemistry offset plates at this site, and are also in the process of developing other exciting products for sustainable applications in other ares of our business here at Tilburg.”
