Superior Printing is committed to keeping the world around us clean and green for generations to come. That's why we do everything we can to ensure that Superior Printing is as efficient and environmentally responsible a print operation as possible. While our plan incorporates recycled papers and environmentally friendly inks, we are continuously inspecting every aspect of our business—from energy use to roof coatings—so we can remain on the leading edge of environmentally responsible business.

We've been doing this a long time.

Far from a bandwagon sales ploy, Superior Printing has put the environment first since our very beginnings, over 20 years ago. With several Awards of Merit and Recognition from the Kingston Area Recycling Corporation and the Kingston Chamber of Commerce from as far back as 1990, Superior Printing Centre's local owners, Bruce and Joanne, believe strongly in keeping the environment clean for all future generations, including their own family.

We re-use and recycle.

We have made reuse and recycling top priorities in our green initiative. All waste paper from our production process is recycled, and we reuse and recycle all our printer and copier paper. We have also introduced pre-consumer and post-consumer fibres into our products and are always searching for quality papers that have a high percentage of post-consumer recycled content. Of course, we also make sure that all of our products are 100% recyclable by our users.

We reduce air pollutants.

We also strive to keep our printing process as free of air pollutants as possible. This has led us away from using only conventional offset printers, which typically produce higher amounts of air volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. To reduce our emissions, we have introduced more digital work, including a brand new digital press installed in June 2009, which produces far fewer emissions than a traditional printing press.

We limit our paper waste.

Believe it or not, Superior Printing's digital print operation produces 10,000% less paper waste than the conventional process! Whereas to print just 100 standard postcards, a typical press could waste up to 400 sheets of paper in what's called the "makeready" process, our digital presses allow us to sidestep the makeready process entirely. Occasionally we must calibrate our colors, but because of our clean technology, we require a maximum of four sheets per 100 postcards and almost always less. Do the math, that's a 10,000% drop in wasted paper!

We restrict our metal waste.

Superior Printing's digital printing processes also reduce metal waste. In the example cited above, conventional printing presses would use four metal plates (one for each color), none of which can be reused should the content change!