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RESEARCH PROPOSAL

TITLE

The Impact of Pre-Printing Waste to the Overall Cost of Printing Industry, Based onMithuru Printers (PVT) Ltd

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1BACKGROUNG OF THE COMPANY

1.2PRODUCT & SERVICES

1.3PERFORMANCE


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1.4STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMThe problem of spoilage and waste control in the printing industry in Sri Lanka

cannot be overemphasized. It had been discussed in printers association. Observation

showed that waste created in printing business in the cities of Colombo and Outstation

was enormous-a lot of papers, inks, darkroom chemicals, films, and plates. The

practice has become a normal trend for the employees and management of these

printing businesses, without realizing the effect waste poses on the customers, the

company, the environment, and the Sri Lankan society as a whole.

The quantity of waste created affects the production cost, and its disposal poses a

threat to the environment. In Sri Lanka, the disposal of printing waste doesnt cost

printing businesses financially. Even though there are laws governing the proper

disposal of waste, these laws are not enforced. Since there are no strict penalties for

improper disposal of waste and spoilage, printing businesses dispose of their waste

anywayin gutters, in dumpsters, in rivers, and on the land.

Emission of VOCs leads to the formation of photochemical smog (ozone) by reacting

with oxides of nitrogen, other pollutants and sunlight. Photochemical smog affects

human health. A number of VOCs are considered to be hazardous air pollutants, e.g.

Toluene, MEK etc. Many plant oils can be used as vehicles for pigments in ink. In

fact, prior to the early 1960s, linseed, soy, corn and canola were common ingredients

in ink.

Petroleum products were substituted on a large scale from the early 60s on, primarily

because presses were running faster and needed shorter drying times. However,

modern technologies, such as UV/EB curing, do enable fast drying times using plant

derived or aqueous inks and coatings. Pollution is caused by the evaporation oforganic solvents. Organic solvents evaporate at different rates. The vapor pressure of

a solvent will indicate how quickly it will evaporate. A high vapor pressure solvent

will evaporate quickly (eg. toluene).

Many solvents used for press washing and in fountain solutions lose up to half of their

volume before they even get to perform the work they are intended for. For example

40-50% of IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol) employed in alcohol dampening systems

evaporates in the fountain. Similar volumes of press cleaning solvents will evaporate

before any cleaning function is accomplished.

As indicated above pre-printing waste contributes a lot to the overall waste in printingindustry and it directly affects the total cost of printing industry as well. Hence, this

research aims to investigate the relationship between pre-printing waste and overall

cost of printing industry.


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1.5RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.3.1 Why pre-printing waste is important to printing industry?

1.3.2 What is the relationship between pre-printing waste and overall waste of

printing?

1.3.3 What is the relationship between pre-printing waste and overall printing cost?

1.3.4 What is the relationship between overall waste of printing and overall printing

cost?

1.6 HYPOTHESIS

There is a positive co-relation exists between pre-printing waste and overall cost of

printing industry.

1.7 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

1.5.1 To find out the significance of pre-printing waste to overall cost of printing

industry.

1.5.2 To identify the relationship between pre-printing waste and overall waste of

printing.

1.5.3 To discover the relationship between pre-printing waste and overall printing

cost.

1.5.4 To determine the relationship between overall waste of printing and overall

printing cost.


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2.0 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Waste is defined as something lying unproductive, inhabited, or desolate. Generally

all waste appears in three forms, namely: solid waste, wastewater (liquid waste), and

air emission (Appiah, 2002). Waste reduction which is vital to the growth anddevelopment of printing businesses in Sri Lanka cannot be overemphasized. In order

to run a printing business as economically and efficiently as possible, one should

reduce all types of wastes including hazardous wastes, solid wastes, and air and water

emissions.

Waste generation is inevitable in printing industry. All the printing processes, namely,

offset lithographic printing, gravure printing, flexography/letterpress, and screen

printing use materials and chemicals that generate waste. When the waste generated

causes financial loss to a company and poses a threat to the environment-air, water,

and land, then it becomes a problem to society at large.

The Printing Industry

The printing industry uses various printing technologies for printing books, magazine,

newspapers, business documents, catalogs, form, etc. These technologies include

lithography, rotogravure, flexography, screen, letter-press, and digital technologies

including inkjet and electro-photography. The use of these technologies depends on

the required quality of the print, number of impressions to be printed, availability of

required resources, cost of the equipment, consumables cost per unit, need to use

variable content, and other factor (Romano, 2004).

Classification of Waste

It is important to note that waste does differ from process to process and the methods

of reducing waste in one printing process do not necessarily apply to other printing

processes. There are three major waste streams found in the printing industry. They

include:

(a)Solid waste in general printing environment solid waste could consist of thefollowing: empty containers, used film packages, outdated materials, damaged

plates, developed films, dated materials, test production, bad printing or spoilage,damaged product, and scrap papers.

(b)Water wastewater waste from printing operations may contain lubricating oils,waste ink, clean-up solvents, photographic chemicals, acids, alkaline, and plate

coatings, as well as metals such as silver, iron, chromium, copper, and barium.

(c) Air emissionsprinting operations produce volatile organic compound emissions

from the use of cleaning solvents and inks, as well as alcohol and other wetting agents

used in lithographic printing. Larger plants can be the source of sulfur dioxide

emissions (Lewis, 1982). Finishing operations may include final trimming, diecutting, folding, collating, binding, laminating, embossing, and assembling


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operations. Binding methods include stitching (stapling), gluing, and mechanical

binding. The primary waste are binding and laminating chemicals and scrap papers

(Banerjee, 2001).

This study reviews literature on waste generation and reduction in offset lithographic

printing. However, to give a reader a fair understanding of what the researcher doesintend, the literature was written.


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3.0 METHODOLOGY

3.1CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

3.2SAMPLING

In view of collecting primary data, stratified simple random sampling method is used

in this study.

3.3INSTRUMENTATIONData collection will be carried out through a form of survey method in the research by

the researcher. This survey uses a questionnaire to collect data and sometimes

researcher will use interview techniques to collect primary data. This questionnaire

Indipendant

Variables

Intermediary

Variable

Dependant

Variable

Overall

Cost

Overall

Waste

Pre-printing

Waste

Volatile Organic

Compounds

Heavy Metals

& Non-

RenewablesRaw Material

Waste

Energy Waste

Ink Waste

Emission Waste


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will be consisting of qualitative and quantitative question forms to collect trustworthy

data in order to eliminate the prejudice of research data collection.

3.4 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

For data presentation and analysis, both descriptive and inferential statistics will be

used. Descriptive statistics will be increasingly described the data that will be

collected by means of frequency counts, ranges (high and low scores or values),

means, modes, median scores, and standard deviations. For better understanding,

variables and distributions will be described that are considered as the essential

concepts of descriptive statistics.

Inferential statistics were used to draw conclusions and make predictions based on the

descriptions of data. In this case, Pearson correlation was employed along with

probability, populations, and sampling.

4 LIMITATIONS AND DELIMITATIONS

As stated, this research will be focusing on procurement functions and overall cost of

printing industry. Therefore procurement function involved in other supply chain

managements will not be considered in this research. The selected sample might not

represent a true picture of the entire population; the researcher will be using a non

probability, judgment sampling method. All possible measures will be taken to limit

biasness and other errors during sampling.

The reluctance of the respondents to disclose their names and addresses and hesitation

to answer some of the questions were also limitations. Reluctance of certain

inhabitants due to frighten to the existing government rules and regulations will also

limitations.


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5 RESEARCH PLAN

10.1 Introduction.10.2 Literature Review.10.3 Methodology.10.4 Data Presentation and Analysis.10.5 Conclusion.10.6 Recommendations.

6 ACTION PLAN

DESCRIPTION

WEEKS NEEDED FROM 17 DEC 12 - 30 MAY 13

1stWeek

2ndWeek

3rdWeek

4thWeek

5thWeek

6thWeek

7thWeek

8thWeek

9thWeek

10thWeek

11thWeek

12thWeek

13thWeek

14thWeek

15thWeek

16thWeek

17thWeek

18thWeek

19thWeek

20thWeek

21stWeek

22ndWeek

23rdWeek

Literature review

17 Dec 12 - 21 Jan 13

Preparation of questionnaires

22 - 28 Jan 13

Field work

29 Jan - 19 Feb 13

Submission of Proposal

22 Feb 13

Clean/Edit/Coding data23 Feb - 5 Mar 13

Analysis of data

6 - 30 Mar 13

Report writing (Initial work)

31 Mar - 28 May 13

Final Report Submission

30 May 13


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REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

Appiah, I. K. (2002). Printing techniques. Kumasi, Ghana: Kwame Nkrumah. University of

Science & Technology Publishing.

Banerjee, S. B. (2001). Managerial perceptions of corporate environmentalism:

Interpretations from industry and strategic implications for organizations. Journal of

Management Studies, 38, 489-513.

Dalessandro, W. (2001). Critical issues in strategic corporate environmental management.

Arlington, MA: Business and the Environment, Cutter Information Corp.

Hird, K. F. (1991). Offset Lithographic Technology. Tinley Park, Ill: Goodheart-Willcox

Company, Inc.

Lewis, P. V. (1982).Managing Human Relations. Boston, MA: Kent Publishing Company.

Romano, F. (2003). The state of printing in the United States.Electronic Publishing, 27:12.

Romano, F. (2004). An investigation into printing industry trends (PICRM-2004-01).

Rochester, NY: Rochester Institute of Technology, Printing Industry Center.

Rothenberg, S., Toribia, R. & Becker, M. (2002).Environmental management in lithographic

printing (PICRM-2002-07). Rochester, NY: Rochester Institute of Technology, Printing

Industry Center.

Tilley, F. (1999). The gap between the environmental attitude and the environmental

behavior of small firms.Business Strategy and the Environment, 8, 238-248.

http://www.colduv.com/

http://www.epri.com/EPRI_Journal/dec_1994/Electech_cure.html

http://kaos.erin.gov.au/portfolio/epg/environet/ncpd/auscase_studies/fildes.htm

http://www.erin.gov.au/portfolio/epg/environet/ncpd/auscase_studies/

http://www.pneac.org/pneac.html

http://www.edf.org/pubs/EDF-Letter/1993/Nov/k_pollprvc.html

http://es.cpa/gov/techinfo/facts/mass/tura-fs6.html

http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/dfe/flexography/case_studies/case1

http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/dfe/flexography/case_studies/case2

http://www.maricopa.gov/sbeap/printp3.htm

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