Pratt Industries Leads Coalition to Increase School Recycling and Environmental Awareness
On Staten Island

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Pratt Industries Chairman Anthony Pratt (right) is welcomed by Staten Island Borough President James Oddo in announcing the program

Corrugated packaging producer Pratt Industries has announced that it will lead a unique coalition of government, private sector, trade association, and non-profit participants to increase recycling rates and environmental awareness among students and teachers in dozens of New York City schools on Staten Island.

Pratt chairman Anthony Pratt joined local leaders including Staten Island Borough President James S. Oddo in releasing details of the program, which for the first time will introduce a detailed anti-littering, pro-recycling curriculum across schools on Staten Island. The goal is eventually to reach more than 20,000 students in the borough, where Pratt has paper mill, corrugating, and recycling facilities.

Pratt and the Borough President’s office spearheaded the program with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI), the national trade association representing the recycling industry. The curriculum was developed by ISRI with JASON Learning, a nonprofit organization and longtime partner of the National Geographic Society. JASON Learning was founded in 1989 by oceanographer Dr. Robert D. Ballard to inspire and educate children through real science and exploration. It also provides lesson plans and development programs for teachers and educators.

“This is a win-win for all those who call Staten Island home,” Pratt told students and educators in announcing the program at a local high school. ”Our company will take all the paper you collect under this initiative to our paper mill right here on Staten Island, where it will be made into new 100% recycled paper and then converted by us into brand new 100% recycled packaging, helping to deliver everything from your computers to tonight’s pizza.”

The syllabus will be introduced on a trial basis at 10 Staten Island schools over the next few weeks and then expanded borough-wide next school year to eventually include more than 35 of Staten Island’s public schools.

Borough President Oddo said that a key part of the curriculum would be an anti-litter component in an “effort to prevent the next generation of litterers, and the best way to do that is through education and increasing recycling rates.”

Staten Island is one of only three municipalities nationwide that ISRI is supporting for JASON Learning. The other pilot programs are being rolled out in Kalamazoo, MI and Baltimore, MD.

Pratt will cover costs and host the professional development of staff from participating schools at its Staten Island paper mill on June 4. The company will host school tours at the facility so that students can see first-hand how the paper recycling process works. The company also is donating recycling bins that have been placed in the participating schools.

Headquartered in Conyers, GA, Pratt Industries is America’s fifth largest corrugated packaging company and the world’s largest, privately-held 100% recycled paper and packaging company. Its other metro area locations are a display division in Totowa, NJ, and a specialty division for retail merchandising in Edison, NJ.

Canon Hosts Printing Industries Alliance in First Tour of Its New Corporate Headquarters on LI

pialliance_visits_canon.031314.1 When Canon U.S.A. Inc. opened its new corporate headquarters in Melville, NY, last year, it invited printers to use the facility’s elaborate showroom and demo center as a learning resource. On March 13, the Long Island division of Printing Industries Alliance (PIAlliance) became the first industry group to take Canon up on its offer by bringing more than 40 members to the site for a guided tour.

The 12,000-square-foot showroom is the centerpiece of a 700,000-square foot-building designed to promote Canon’s corporate philosophies as well as its technologies and products. Canon executives briefed the visitors on the layout and construction of the building, emphasizing the great lengths to which Canon has gone in order to make it sustainable and environmentally friendly. Product briefings followed, including overviews of some of Canon’s most advanced systems for production digital printing.

“Kyosei” is a Japanese word for the idea of living and working harmoniously—a concept that Canon says it strives to honor both as a profit-making business and as a responsible member of the communities where it operates. Environmental responsibility at all stages of the life cycle is paramount, and the headquarters building, the visitors were told, has been engineered to be as environmentally friendly 100 years from now as it is today.

Among the steps taken toward that goal was laying out the building in a way that permits 75% of it to receive natural light—an architectural strategy that cuts consumption of electricity. The structure has no indoor thermostats, relying instead on external sensors that modify the interior climate according to changes in temperature outside. Benches on the property’s park-like, 52-acre campus—formerly a pumpkin patch off Route 110—are made of recycled toner cartridges.

pialliance_visits_canon.031314.2Dennis Amorosano, vice president of the marketing division of Canon’s business information and imaging solutions group, gave the visitors a corporate overview of a $35.5 billion supplier of consumer, B2B, and industrial imaging technologies that employs more than 194,000 people worldwide. Amorosano said that Canon invested a sum equal to more than 8% percent of last year’s net sales in R&D and received 3,825 U.S. patents, making it the third-largest holder of U.S. patents in 2013.

The company had $2.2 billion in net income last year. 2013 also saw the completion of Canon’s integration of Océ, a digital print systems manufacturer it acquired in 2009. Frances Cicogna, commercial print segment manager, said that the Canon-Océ combination represents the industry’s broadest portfolio of solutions for cut-sheet and continuous production printing in color and black and white. In 2012, she said, Canon and Océ equipment produced 68 billion digital pages—about 20% of all digital pages output in the U.S.

Although the tour of the showroom focused mostly on production systems and workflow, it also familiarized the PIAlliance visitors with Canon’s extensive lines of consumer cameras and personal imaging products. The exhibit space—equal parts library, museum, and machine demo room—features numerous hands-on product stations and interactive displays that trace Canon’s history from its founding in the 1930s.

The showroom also houses examples of Canon technologies that are not well known to the general public, such as devices for medical exams and a “mixed reality” imaging system that can inject computer-generated graphics into real-time views of the physical world.

The Canon visit was one of a number of activities scheduled this year by PIAlliance’s Long Island chapter, which is chaired by Richard Schielke. Upcoming are a golf outing, a fishing trip, and a town hall-style meeting for members in May.

Printing Industries Alliance is a regional affiliate of Printing Industries of America (PIA), the national trade association for the graphic communications industry. Printing Industries Alliance represents graphics firms in New York State, northern New Jersey and northwestern Pennsylvania.

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Rosemont Press Earns Forest Stewardship Council Certification

Rosemont Press, Inc. (Deer Park, NY) has announced its certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). As an FSC-certified organization, Rosemont Press utilizes wood products from forests that are managed to high environmental, economic, and social standards.

Rosemont Press achieved its certified status following a rigorous application and auditing process. The FSC tracks the chain of custody of wood from managed forests through all stages of processing and distribution, including printed products. Similar to the growing market for recycled products, there is an increasing demand for FSC-certified products. Items printed by Rosemont Press for its clients will be entitled to special FSC labeling to announce the ecologically responsible nature of the products.

Patricia Reardon, president of Rosemont Press, commented, “FSC certification is just one more step of many that Rosemont has taken to be a socially responsible company and reduce our impact on the environment.”  Some of its other eco-friendly programs include:

• recycling all paper (not used in final products), along with metal, ink, and wood

• collecting, storing, and disposing of ink, chemicals, solvents and press solutions, ensuring that they will not get into groundwater

• instituting the latest GRACol 7 process standards, resulting in significant reduction of consumable waste

• utilizing online proofing to reduce production of physical hard proofs

• using “green” soy inks (safe, sustainable and renewable)

• replacing all corporate lighting with high-efficiency, low-watt usage lighting alternatives

Established in 1962, Rosemont Press is one of the largest family-owned commercial printing companies in the New York metro area. A full-service printing and visual communications provider, Rosemont Press has offices in New York City and a 40,000-sq.-ft. production facility on Long Island. For more information, visit www.rosemontpress.com.

The Forest Stewardship Council promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world’s forests.