Siegwerk India recently celebrated its second anniversary of toluene-free operations in India. The Germany-headquartered Siegwerk was already toluene-free across all other packaging ink factories in the world, having adopted this policy much earlier.
Toluene has earned disrepute globally for its dangerous toxicological profile. The manifold adverse effects make it an issue related to consumer safety, occupational safety and environmental safety. Due to its developmental toxicity, toluene is officially classified as CMR category 2 (suspected of damaging the unborn child) in the EU. Furthermore, when printing with toluene-based inks, there is an imminent risk of residual toluene in packaging being transferred to the packed food and beverages which impacts the organoleptic properties of the product thus can lead to food quality and safety as well as legal compliance issues. The unfavorable toxicological properties of toluene are the reason why global brand owners like Nestle etc. have restricted or even completely banned the usage of toluene in ink formulations intended for food packaging material of their products.
For Siegwerk India, the crossover to toluene-free operations has not been easy though. “In 2017, when we decided to go toluene-free, we had to let go off some of our businesses since at that time some part of our business was toluene-based. It was a conscious call to take the business hit in a way, and that was one of the most difficult decisions. However, we had to take this decision in the best interest of our employees, employees of our customers and for the market. We have more than recovered our losses because now the market has understood the reason why we did it and brand owners and our customers are supporting us,” said Ashish Pradhan, president, Siegwerk India and Greater China. He shared that Siegwerk India had done quite well in 2018 and 2019, witnessing a healthy double digit growth, despite the painful 2017.
A big challenge with toluene-free ink is to make the ink run on the press since it altogether becomes a different technology with different solvent chemistry. “Toluene is a very good solvent which works very well on the press. If you remove toluene, the other solvent doesn’t run that well. So you need some expertise to run the ink. That is the expertise which an ink manufacturer can bring and we do exactly the same,” explained Pradhan. “In addition, we have a large team of print engineers who work closely with our customers to make the ink run on their press. And that is the biggest service and support that we provide to our customers. And that is why, the move has been so successful so far.”
Migration-optimized inks – the future
According to Pradhan, being toluene-free is just a part of the journey. When we talk about safe food ink, the other chemicals that go into ink manufacturing need to be taken care of as well. Each printing ink consists of four general components – binder/resin, solvent, additives and pigment/colorant. By excluding a solvent like toluene, ketone, mineral oils etc., one cannot assume and be assured that the inks are safe. Safe inks (or migration-optimized inks) are inks with careful selection of raw materials in all four categories so that none of the components of the printing ink formulations impact consumer safety.
“The chemical contaminants from the packaging inks can get transferred to the foodstuff by a process called migration. So, we have to make our ink ‘migration-optimized’. We have to make sure that all the ingredients that we use in the ink are safe, and even at the maximum level of migration – from ink to the package, and from the package to the foodstuff – is well under the stipulated norms. We have already launched our migration-optimized ink. It is a continuous process, and we will continue to work on food safety,” explained Pradhan.
Pradhan said that it is the responsibility of the brand owner to update the entire supply chain on the brand owner requirements as well as legal requirements. The converter has the responsibility of how he processes the ink, laminate or the package as that has a big role to play in migration. “As an ink manufacturer, we can only ensure that we use the right ingredients which is set by our raw material introduction process and how we process it. We have an in-house team of experts who are responsible solely for the choice of suitable raw materials for our printing inks. Every new source material is checked using extensive and closely knit processes. These are based equally on up-to-date knowledge and decades of experience,” said Pradhan.
Sustainability beyond products
Visiting Siegwerk’s Bhiwadi (Rajasthan) plant on 11 December 2019 was quite an experience for us. We experienced firsthand the company’s commitment towards sustainability and recyalibility, and various other projects that the company is undertaking to keep the environment green. “We are focusing a lot on recyalibility and circular economy, and how we can partner with the whole packaging value chain and make packaging which is more recyclable,” said Pradhan.
The company has set up a small but highly sophisticated solvent recovery plant which can recover and put 98% of the cleaning solvent back into the system for reuse. “The solvent recovery plant can recover up to 30 kl solvent a month,” said Pradhan. “Presently we are recovering 10 kl per month based on our current waste generation.” The company is also utilizing this plant to recover solvents from unused inks which sometimes due to some reasons are not delivered to the customers.
Another green initiative taken by the company is wastewater treatment. “Whatever wastewater we generate comes to our ETP plant for re-treatment by using evaporation and drying methods, and other auxiliary techniques. The retreated water is then sent back to our plant for reuse, where it is basically used in cooling towers. The ETP plant retreats 50 kl per day (KLD),” he said. In the last five years, the company has also worked a lot towards energy saving by using solar power.
