Sustainability in Vinyl Record Packaging

The need for sustainability has always been important to Stoughton Printing as well as our many different customers over the years, and we have taken on this important task in how we operate our business.

When Prop 65 (the Clean Water Act) passed in California in 1986, it forever changed the Printing Industry as we know it. Rather than hide our heads in the sand, Stoughton Printing met the changes head on, like a challenge. Gone were the typically harsh chemicals in the Pressroom environment, gone were additive plates where developer was added to the plate (creating an untreated waste stream). New terms came into vogue such as VOC (Volatile Organic Compound), Aqueous Chemicals (meaning water based rather than oil based). And we were at the forefront of adopting this new regime.

We installed our first RO (Reverse Osmosis) water system to control our water used for printing, since Offset Lithography is a balance between Water and Ink. This allowed us to control the amount of chemistry we added to the water (especially since we were now Alcohol Free). In doing so, we were able to better control the ink and ink film, creating better color control, harder drying inks (with higher gloss). And, of course, sealed them with Aqueous Coatings (Stoughton had the first Heidelberg press with a dedicated tower coater delivered outside of Germany in 1985)




We have always worked with our paper and board suppliers to insure that all of our printing paper and board standard floor stocks have a minimum of 10% Post Consumer Waste (PCW) and often use higher PCW content when we requested by record companies or an artist that we deal with directly. Whenever possible, we deal with local paper merchants, shipping to us locally – rather than across the country or across an ocean. We have many paper and board grades of FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) sheets available, as well as Acid Free, ECF (Elemental Chlorine Free), and pH Neutral sheets.




All of our standard inks, varnishes and coatings that we run out on our conventional printing presses are Soy Based Inks (rather than Magee Oil – a petroleum product), manufactured to be the lowest VOC content around. In the early stages of this conversion, we experimented with many inks made of various other plant based oils (such as Linseed Oil or Safflower Oil), but found that the Soybean Oil based inks offered the most stability, thus allowing us to print a cleaner, sharper dot and not compromise print quality in any way.

Stoughton Printing Co. (SPC) is Permitted by the AQMD (Air Quality Management District) to emit 700 lbs. of VOC’s monthly, but rarely do we exceed 40 lbs. through cleaner products, cleaner processes and better housekeeping. These processes are constantly looked at and refined.

We invested highly in new Pre-Press workflow with direct link to the printing presses for setting ink fountains and color (as well as many other press functions) – dramatically reducing the amount of Make-Ready Paper/Board Waste (waste stream) previously used to get the press up to color and begin the run (reduction of approximately 80% over conventional presses). This saves time, materials and costs.

Another part of this new Pre-Press equipment includes a new, thermal Direct to Plate system that uses Chem-Free plates, “developed” only by water & gum (no harsh chemicals), rather than our previous Direct to Plate system that used Blue Violet UV technology and the requirement to develop plates and then dispose of the chemical waste.




As you know, Stoughton’s specialty LP packaging is the Old Style® record jackets. These deluxe jackets are made with a base chipboard (Clay Coated/News Back) that is made of 100% recycled content with a postconsumer waste minimum of 80%.




As part of our manufacturing processes in-house, all of our printing paper and board stocks have their own recycling flows separate from that of our and chipboard recycling. That waste is sent to a paper recycling company that manufactures the CC/NB (Clay Coated/News Back), which we in turn, purchase back from them as our base stock for our flagship Old Style® Gatefold and Old Style® Tip-On Jackets.

We also use only Food Grade Adhesives, made from recycled sources for our mounting sheets to the die cut shells. This is totally water soluable and comes in cake form and is heated by hot water to achieve its workable viscosity.

All our Aluminum Plates used for printing are recycled as well. Further, all of our Ink waste and Solvent waste is sent via a Certified Waste Hauler to an Asphalt Plant where it is either manufactured into Road Base or Roofing Material similar to tar.

We have made huge strides in the last couple of years in reducing our Carbon Footprint in many other ways as well, not just in the printing processes.

We have brought in-house almost all of our standard die-cutting and gluing with investments in new equipment which has also increased productivity and throughput. This has also worked to limit the usage of our truck fleet and our supplier/partners’ usage of delivery trucks and freight – thus keeping those trucks idle, and off the roads for some amount of time.

SPC also instituted a 4 day work week (4-10’s) 12 years ago, though this may seem like a small thing, but this a direct reduction of our carbon footprint with having our manufacturing facility open only 4 days a week. Not being open these 52 days less reduces our usage of electricity for lighting and air conditioning and operating machinery (using them in less peak times), our usage of natural gas for heating, our end of day wash-ups and beginning of the day start up make-readies on all machinery by 20% as well.

That in turn, reduces all of our employees commuting to and from work by 20% (4 days a week rather than 5 days), and allows them to commute in less than peak times actually decreasing their on road time and making their driving more efficient, and reduces the number of trips that our vendors need to make to us by 20% annually.

We also instituted a work from home policy where we can (obviously, you can’t take a printing press home) that saves some people from coming in the office by another 50% or so.

All of which is not only better for the environment and our Industry, but better for our employees as well. That’s our commitment, not just to this industry and our customers, but our commitment to the environment as well.

Stoughton Printing Co., putting the best practices into everyday practices.