United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Air and Energy Engineering
Research Laboratory
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711
Research and Development
EPA/600/SR-95/060
June 1995
EPA Project Summary
Evaluation of Barriers to the
Use of Radiation-Cured
Coatings in Screen Printing
C. Jeff Harris and J. David Winkler
In support of the Source Reduction
Review Project (SRRP), maximum
achievable control technology (MACT)
standards development, and the Pollu-
tion Prevention Act, EPA is investigat-
ing the current industrial use and barri-
ers to the extended use of waterbased
and radiation-cured coatings in SRRP
and MACT categories. The full report
gives results of a study to investigate
and identify the technical, educational,
and economic barriers to the use and
implementation of radiation-cured coat-
ings in the non-textile screen printing
industry. Use of ultraviolet (UV)-curable
inks offers substantial economic and
process benefits, in addition to envi-
ronmental benefits. Among the benefits
are (1) reduction in required floor space;
(2) increased throughput; (3) reduction
in health and safety hazards for work-
ers exposed to screen printing inks;
and (4) reduced cost per unit area
printed. Technical barriers include ink
and substrate limitations and health and
safety issues. Economic barriers pro-
vide the greatest challenge to imple-
menting UV-curable inks. The costs of
purchasing UV-curing units, coupled
with downtime required to effect the
changeover, are significant disincen-
tives for the small printing shops preva-
lent in the industry. The principal edu-
cational barrier is the transfer of tech-
nical information from research orga-
nizations to small, diffuse printing
shops. The document suggests projects
that could help overcome the techni-
cal, educational, and economic barri-
ers identified.
This Project Summary was developed
by EPA's Air and Energy Engineering
Research Laboratory, Research Tri-
angle Park, NC, to announce key find-
ings of the research project that is fully
documented in a separate report of the
same title (see Project Report ordering
information at back).
Overview
Section 4(b) of the Pollution Prevention
Act (PPA) of 1990 requires EPA to review
regulations of the Agency prior and sub-
sequent to their proposal to determine their
effect on source reduction. The stated goal
of the PPA is "[T]hat pollution should be
prevented or reduced at the source when-
ever feasible." This is a departure from
more traditional "end-of-pipe" control strat-
egies, which sometimes transfer pollution
from one medium to another. Pollution
prevention strives to eliminate or reduce
pollution before it is produced. In support
of the PPA, EPA established the Source
Reduction Review Project (SRRP) to fo-
cus this review on the regulations (and
anticipated regulated industries) that may
be promulgated under the Clean Air Act
(CAA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), or the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA). A goal of SRRP tasks is to en-
sure that source reduction and multimedia
issues are considered during the develop-
ment of upcoming air, water, and hazard-
ous waste standards.
An important set of regulations under
the CAA, a regulation of SRRP focus, are
the standards for maximum achievable
control technology (MACT) to reduce emis-
sions of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs).
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Promulgation of these regulations began
in 1992 and will continue throughout the
1990s and into the next century. The
MACT standards offer an excellent oppor-
tunity to use SRRP to incorporate pollu-
tion prevention measures into the upcom-
ing standards for specific source catego-
ries. The PPA defines pollution prevention
as "any practice that reduces the amount
of any hazardous substance, pollutant, or
contaminant entering the waste stream or
otherwise released to the environment (in-
cluding fugitive emissions) prior to recy-
cling, treatment, or disposal and reduces
the hazards to public health and the envi-
ronment associated with the release of
such substances, pollutants, or contami-
nants." Pollution prevention offers eco-
nomic and reduced health and ecological
risk benefits to many sectors of society
that are not available through traditional
pollution control methods.
In support of the SRRP program, MACT
standards development, and the PPA, EPA
is investigating pollution prevention op-
portunities for products and materials that
reduce waste. The objective of this project
was to investigate the current industrial
use and barriers to the extended use of
waterbased and radiation-cured coatings
in SRRP and MACT categories. Both ra-
diation-cured and waterbased coatings
have been demonstrated to reduce pollu-
tion in several specific end-use catego-
ries.
During the first task of this project, 52
industry categories were identified as hav-
ing the potential to use radiation-cured
and waterbased coatings as pollution pre-
vention alternatives. During this phase,
contacts were made with representatives
from coating suppliers and trade associa-
tions and limited literature searches were
completed. From this list of 52 potential
industry categories, 10 were selected for
further study. Preliminary market analy-
ses were prepared for each of these 10
categories. Following the completion of
the 10 analyses, three categories were
selected for investigation: Adhesive-Coated
and Laminated Paper (SIC 2671 and
2672), Metal Cans (SIC 3411), and Com-
mercial Printing - Not Elsewhere Classi-
fied (SIC 2759). All three of these catego-
ries face upcoming MACT standards. By
initiating this report, EPA has begun a
dialogue on pollution prevention with the
industry categories. When the MACT stan-
dards are developed, EPA will have a
better understanding of which coating tech-
nologies are feasible pollution prevention
alternatives for the three categories. Con-
versations with resin manufacturers, coat-
ing suppliers, and end users indicated that
waterbased coatings were already being
used extensively in the three categories,
particularly in the manufacture of metal
cans. Conversely, radiation-cured coatings
had made progress in each of the three
categories but were not widely used in
any of them. The limited penetration of
radiation-cured coatings offered the best
opportunity for research.
The screen printing project was initially
intended to study both ultraviolet (UV) ra-
diation-cured and waterbased screen print-
ing inks as possible alternatives to sol-
vent-based inks with high volatile organic
compound (VOC) emissions. During the
project research, it became evident that
the focus should be on UV-curable inks.
Waterbased screen printing inks that are
currently available have many of the short-
comings that UV-curable inks have but do
not provide some of the benefits provided
by UV-curable inks. Therefore, the focus
of the project became the use of radia-
tion-cured coatings. The focus of this re-
port is on barriers to the use of radiation-
cured coatings in the non-textile screen
printing industry (SIC 27598).
This report gives results of a study to
investigate and identify the technical, edu-
cational, and economic barriers to the use
and implementation of radiation-cured
coatings within the non-textile screen print-
ing industry. This project involved identify-
ing and classifying barriers to use and
implementation, evaluating, and assess-
ing the environmental impacts, and identi-
fying pollution prevention and source re-
duction research opportunities within the
non-textile screen printing industry. To suc-
cessfully accomplish these objectives, in-
formation was collected from several
sources including literature searches, plant
visits, pollution prevention experts, and
industry and trade association personnel.
Literature searches of the EPA on-line
databases, local university library data-
bases, and Dialog® were conducted. The
Pollution Prevention Information Clearing-
house (PPIC) and the Pollution Preven-
tion Information Exchange System (PIES)
were also accessed. The E-Mail capabili-
ties of PIES were also used to communi-
cate with other PIES users with knowl-
edge of the non-textile screen printing in-
dustry.
In addition to research performed in li-
braries and computer databases, and
through phone conversations with indus-
try representatives, three other major data
gathering activities were performed:
• Visited Rand McNally Book Services
Division in Nashville, TN,
• Attended the 1993 Screen Printing
Association International (SPAI) trade
show in New Orleans, LA, and
• Summarized and tabulated responses
to a SPAI survey of its members re-
garding their use of UV-curable screen
printing inks.
The full report (1) contains background
material and project summaries; (2) de-
scribes conventional screen printing pro-
cesses and discusses material inputs,
manufacturing equipment, physical pro-
cesses, product outputs, emissions, and
wastes; (3) discusses the alternative tech-
nology under investigation and evaluates
process, cost, and emissions and wastes
differentials between the conventional and
alternative processes; (4) identifies the
technical barriers to the extended use of
radiation-cured coatings and describes the
difficulties and available information on so-
lutions currently under consideration; (5)
discusses economic barriers; (6) identifies
educational barriers; (7) presents additional
source reduction and pollution prevention
research opportunities; and (8) gives de-
tailed results of a survey performed by
SPAI.
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C. Jeff Harris and J. David Winklerare with TRC Environmental Corp., Chapel Hill, NC
27514.
Carlos M. Nunez is the EPA Project Officer (see below).
The complete report, entitled "Evaluation of Barriers to the Use of Radiation-Cured
Coatings in Screen Printing," (Order No. PB95-208864; Cost: $19.50, subject to
change) will be available only from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:
Air and Energy Engineering Research Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711
United States
Environmental Protection Agency
Center for Environmental Research Information
Cincinnati, OH 45268
Official Business
Penalty for Private Use $300
BULK RATE
POSTAGE & FEES PAID
EPA
PERMIT No. G-35
EPA/600/SR-95/060
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