DuPont Packaging Publishes Environmental LCA Studies

The two LCAs compared the environmental footprints of flexographic printing to gravure printing, and the footprint of thermal platemaking to solvent platemaking for flexography. Data comparing flexo and gravure printing indicate that use of the flexo process alone results in significant reductions in both non-renewable energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 50 percent when converting flexible packaging plastic films. In simple terms, for every 1 million square meters (approx. 10 million square feet) of printed plastic substrate switched from gravure to flexo, the resulting savings in non-renewable energy would be equivalent to approximately 25,000 gallons of gasoline, and savings in greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to removing approximately 40 typical U.S. passenger cars from the road for one year.