Although we work mostly with Paper and Ink, the use of water is, and now was, quite extensive. Water is primarily used to washing the metal plates prior to going to press and then mixed with the ink during the actual printing process.

The Prepress Process
When making metal plates for print, each plate goes through the following workflow:-

1. Burning the required image onto the plate
2. Cooking the plate, so that the image can't be removed.
3. Washing the plate, so to remove excess chemical residue and coat for ink use.

It is during this washing of the plates that we have installed sensors to automatically turn the water on only when the plate is entering the processor and off when it has passed through. Prior to the water savers being installed, we would use on average 25 litres of water per plate, but now we only use 5 litres. Over a course of a day this is an average saving of upto 2000 litres of water.

The Printing Process
During the printing process, water is used to stop ink from sticking to the paper anywhere other than the area filled on the plate. The imaged area of the plate is the only area where the ink used, therefore the water is used to dampen the remainder of the area and is then removed prior to the next colour being printed.

Each of our presses have 80 litre water tanks. These tanks, although automatically replenished from the tap, have had floats installed, similar to the float in a toilet cistern. Also the water is constantly recycled and filtered through the machine and re-used, therefore over a weekly period the machine water tank is emptied and cleaned weekly and will only replenish about 20 litres of water per week.