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Sustainability
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BY MEGGAN MCCARTHY
Kodak Sonora
XP Process
Free Plates
With South Africa's severe water shortages,
especially in Cape Town, which is experiencing
its worst drought, water conservation is
on everyone's mind. But it should extend
beyond homes and into businesses. For
printers, process free plates could help in their
conservation eff orts.
Kodak projects the print industry could save up to 918 million litres of water
through conversions to SONORA Plates in the next three years. This is based on
calculations using average water use, plate processing times of popular plate
processors and projected sales of SONORA Plates. There’s no plate processing
step. So users can image on the platesetter and go straight to press.
www.AfricaPrint.com
Besides saving water and energy, it eliminates chemicals used in plate making
and waste caused by remakes due to processing variability. These factors
reduce the overall carbon footprint.
The plates save on water by using:
• Zero water to rinse the plate in a plate processor.
• Zero water to mix concentrated chemistry.
• Zero water to clean the plate processor.
The plates also use less energy. When processing plates, thermal plate
processors use on average 3.15 kWh for small units and 4.5 for larger devices.
Kodak projects the print industry could save up to 461 million kWh of energy
through conversions to SONORA Plates in the next three years, based on
calculations using average energy use, plate processing times of popular plate
processors and projected sales of SONORA Plates.
Regulations that help keep water, air, soil and people safe