According to a definition I
found, "Post-Consumer" material is an end product
that has completed its life cycle as a consumer item and would otherwise have
been disposed of as a solid waste. Post-consumer materials indicates the
product was made with these materials that were recycled by residents and other
businesses.
Using post-consumer material is not trivial in terms of reducing the
impact on forests. According to
Wikipedia, recycling 1 ton of printing or copier paper saves slightly more than
2 tons of wood; 35% of felled trees are used in paper production; and trees
raised specifically for pulp production account for 16% of world pulp
production, old growth forests 9% and second- and third- and more generation
forests account for the balance.
But should we consider using post-consumer recycled material for
labels?
After consulting industry experts, I was told that post-consumer
labels:
- · Costs less (~10%) than matte and standard bond paper labels, especially inkjet coated paper.
- · Contains a compound that helps to “capture” ink; producing better print quality than plain paper.
- · Produces, typically, print quality not as good as a matte paper label.
- · Maintains a level of water resistance similar to matte paper labels.
To test these points, I printed using the TM-C3500 on some post-consumer paper and
compared it to matte paper labels. Can
you tell which are the matte and post-consumer paper?
On the right, you’ll find the post-consumer recycled paper. I found no difference between the print
quality between the two different media.
Can you see a difference?
Then I tested the printed labels under water.
The top is the post-consumer recycled.
From my very limited test, I found the post-consumer recycled label
media did not hold up to the water as well.
Just to be sure, I took off the liner of the matte paper to compare.
Without the liner, the matte paper label seemed to withstand water
better.
Based on my limited tests, I would recommend the post-consumer recycled
label for any short term type of labels with the desire to add color; WIP
inventory labels, Pick labels, shipping labels, etc. For product or other types of long-lived
labels, I would recommend using a more durable matte paper label. Please remember; I printed these labels with a pigment-based inkjet label printer. However, I believe these labels should work with both dye and pigment based inkjet color label printers.
If you like to learn more about reducing waste, check out this post on how moving to print on-demand color reduces waste and costs:
Mercury Medical: http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/03/67.html
If you have interest in a post-consumer paper for your print on-demand
color labels, contact Color Label Solutions: www.colorlabelsolutions.com.
Guy Mikel
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