Study on economic and environment efficiency of offset and digital printing systems

Abstract

In generally, printing service is classified in small business entity which is located in community area. The environmental impact studied will be a necessary factor for all service providers because of wastes will directly effect to each community area. This research is studied about the environmental impact and cost of printing production by comparing between Offset printing (most favorite in Thailand) and Digital printing (new alternative for printing service). We study the different of four case studies as; 70% of printing page (black & white printing), 100% of printing page (4-color printing), 76 Pages of printing book (black & white printing) and 132 Pages of printing book (4-color printing). According to environmental impact studied by Eco-indicator 99, we can conclude that Offset printing system will effect an environmental in term of plate making system. In average impact per one piece of production, an environmental impact will be changed by increased of printing job. At the next step, we study an environmental impact by changing the chemical element. We use the Vegetable oil instead of Benzene and result in decreasing the impact in term of Carcinogens, Respiratory of organics and Ecotoxicity while increasing an impact of Land use. Finally we compare all aspects of environmental impact between Offset printing and Digital printing system and conclude that Offset printing system can effect higher impact than Digital printing system. Therefore, the Digital printing system is one effective alternative in order to decrease environmental impact. In production cost, Digital printing system will be cheaper than Offset printing system in low level of production. While Offset printing system will be cheaper than Digital printing system in high level of production. Moreover cost of production under Offset printing will be decreased by each production increased.