Cleaner Technology Projects in Denmark 1997
Minimisation of the Discharge of Chemicals and Water Coming from Photo Processes in Graphic Industries
Minimering af kemikalie- og vandudledning fra fotoprocesser i grafiske
virksomheder
Arbejdsrapport nr. 60, 1997, Miljøstyrelsen
The purpose of this project is to give a survey of the amount of chemicals and waste water discharged from the graphical industries, which come from photo processes, and to describe the equipment of the photo processes available on the market today, which are used for cleaning and re-circulation of the waste water. Another purpose is to describe what the technological development of the graphic industry will mean for the outlet of wastewater from the industry.
When you talk about the graphic industry you talk about industries as e.g. paper-printing houses, printing shops, reprographic printing houses and serigraphic printing houses. The investigation is based on information from Danmarks Statistik, a questionnaire study among 33 companies in the graphic industry and specialist literature.
Since the questionnaire study is data on very slender grounds, it has not been possible to calculate the average fixed water consumption for companies with and without water wasting plant. Even though the data groundwork is slender there are however a number of tendencies, which can be drawn from this without talking about statistical secure tendencies.
The water consumption of the companies varies a lot. The reason could be that there are not installed measures to measure the use of water at the single processes, but the answers have been given from an estimate made by the companies taking part in the investigation.
The variations of the chemical use among the companies are very small, which could mean that there is a bigger consciousness of the chemical consumption than of the water consumption.
There exists four different types of plants for wastewater and chemicals and minimising of outlets:
 | Plants that re-circulate wash water from picture-processing machines/ or plates and in this way a saving of water is obtained. |
| Plants that re-circulate the wash water from the development of pictures and/ or plates and reduces the concentration of silver in the outlet wash water, hereby a saving of water and a reduction of the silver outlet are obtained. |
| Plants, which re-circulate the wash water from picture-processing machines and paper and reuses part of the wastewater in the production of fixing solution. This leads to a saving of water is obtained and a total elimination of the outlet of wastewater to the sewerage system. |
| Plants that function as the above mentioned and furthermore are equipped with internal systems for re-circulating developing and/ or fixing solutions and by this savings are made on developing- and/ or fixing chemicals. |
According to information from the suppliers it can be concluded that more than 350 water- and chemical wasting plants have been sold. Approx. 40 of these plants have been installed in the newspaper and daily paper industries. Furthermore a few plants have been sold to hospitals, dentists, veterinary hospitals and photo shops. The price of the plants varies from approx. 6.000 to 40.000 DKK.
Author/ institution
COWI, Grafisk Arbejdgiverforening
This report is subsidised by the National Council for Recycling and Cleaner Technology
ISSN no. 0908-9195
ISBN no. 87-7810-847-0