This paper suggests a comprehensive approach to comply with environmental protection requirements for package printing industry in relation to the environmental policy of the Japanese Government. Based on the analysis of the issue, the writer of this paper extracts the problems of the packaging material production in Japan and proposes some means to solve them.

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In order to utilize packages effectively as resources, it is required to reduce materials used in packages, to reuse packages themselves, and to recycle packaging materials. Various packages have been developed for those purposes. For reducing, changes of packaging materials and/or the packaging shape, as well as the reduction of the amount of the used materials, have been performed. Reuse of packages has been carried out in glass bottles and refill-packages. For recycling, packages are required to consist of a single material or easily separable materials.

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The Containers and Packaging Recycling Law was put in force since April 1997, with the objective of reducing overall volume of Municipal Solid Waste by means of reducing packaging waste through promoting recycling the same. Under this law, a non-profit organization was created in 1996 as The Japan Containers and Packaging Recycling Association, getting its start as an organization designated by the competent ministries. I report the recycling results of the Association for four years from 1997 through 2000, and also point out the problems of the Law regarding Special Business Entities, so-called “Free Riders”, Local Municipalities, Recyclers, and Recycling fee respectively.

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Printing is a labor-incentive job, requiring collaboration of a number of specialist staff members with different duties. Focusing on the proofreading process, we conducted a network-collaboration experiment to identify problems involved and evaluate the workability. In the experiment, an “electronic proofreading” approach employing an SHD system capable of outputting 2048×2048 pixels at 60F/s was used for comparison with our conventional system. Much better work efficiency was confirmed with this SHD system-based network-collaboration. With a view to assisting good collaboration among many staff members, we also developed an SHD video distributor for projection on a 90-inch projector screen. Although the SHD images projected attained a higher resolution than that of our conventional system, our evaluation has also revealed that much higher projector performance is required to ensure smooth conduct of the proofreading work. Additionally, another study we conducted has proved that “eye contact” which has been believed to be essential in this type of network-collaboration, is not necessary in our electronic proofreading operation.

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The electrodeposition of siliceous film on aluminum was investigated in order to convert non-image areas to hydrophilic surface in short time after the formation of oleophilic image areas in the platemaking process of direct image aluminum lithographic plates. Siliceous films were electrodeposited on aluminum foils in various sodium silicate solutions (SiO₂/Na₂O molar ratio: 2.2, 2.5, 3.1). Applied voltages were 10, 30 and 50V. Water wettability and ink receptivity of the electrodeposited surface were examined and IR spectra and XPS spectra were measured. Ink did not adhere to the surface electrodeposited for 5 seconds. The formation of siliceous films was affected considerably by the applied voltages but not affected very much by electrodeposition time. Siliceous films were formed easily in the sodium silicate solutions that have high SiO₂/Na₂O ratio. It was found that the electrodeposition of siliceous film may be applied to the treatment to make non-image areas hydrophilic in platemaking process of direct image lithographic plates.

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This study investigated the penetration of ink vehicle into printing paper. Printing quality must be evaluated to develop and improve printing paper. Information on the penetration in the depth direction of ink-paper system is especially desirable for printed paper. A thin section of a specimen from an epoxy-embedded sample is most commonly used. However, this is entirely inadequate for application to ink-paper system because the printed ink tends to dissolve into the resin. In this study, we created smooth cross-sections of various printed papers by a focused ion beam (FIB) method. This method can be used to analyze printing ink transfer to and penetration into the paper. However, we could not directly observe penetration of the ink vehicle into paper substrate structure through a scanning electron microscope (SEM), because there is little contrast between the printing vehicle and the printed paper. Hence, in order to obtain useful information on the interaction between the substrate structure and the ink, we developed a new technique by combining the FIB method with an electron probe micro analysis (EPMA) after labeling the unsaturated carbon double bonds in the vehicle with osmium. Using this novel method, we could for the first time observe the distribution of the vehicle after it transferred to and penetrated into the paper.

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Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Materials that have many advantages of both organic and inorganic have been applied to various fields. We tried to apply these materials to (1) Photofabrication of inorganic materials and (2) Resists for semiconductor productions by modifying the surface of inorganic and attaching photofunctionalities on inorganics. This concept improved photosensitivity and resolution capability of the materials. In (1), more than 98wt% inorganic contents could be introduced to hybrids materials and thick, high aspect ratio patterns were obtained with controllable cross-sectional shapes. In (2), by blending surface modified silica-sols to commercially available resists, performance such as photosensitivity, resolution capability, dry etching capability were greatly improved. We believe that photopatterning using photosensitive organic/inorganic materials will be attracting many interests with increasing nano-technology applications.

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By rapid spread of electronic media centering on the Internet, improvements in printing speed and printability in news paper printing are progressing in recent years. Moreover, correspondence with environment is desired also for related materials such as ink, paper, etc. from the rise of the concern about environmental problems. With change and progress of news-paper printing technology, demands for news offset ink is diversified and technologies have been developed every year as represented by high-viscosity ink and aroma free solvent based ink. Here, we explain about newspaper ink focusing on the latest technical topics.

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