Recently, "China printing industry innovation conference 2019" hosted by the General Administration of Press and Publication of the People's Republic of China was held  in Beijing, with the theme of "Focusing on Greening".

The reporter learned from this conference that in the past 70 years, China's printing industry has grown from more than 1,000 enterprises and less than 100,000 employees in the early days of the founding of New China to 98,000 enterprises and 2,704,000 employees by the end of 2018, realizing a total printing output value of RMB1.27 trillion yuan and a total asset of RMB1.52 trillion yuan. Among the 43 categories of cultural and related industry, the revenue of printing enterprises above designated size has accounted for 7.2% of the revenue of enterprises above designated size of cultural and related industry in China. 

"Printing industry has become a pillar industry in China's cultural industry, and has played an important role in position construction, technical support, serving the people and inheriting civilization." Liang Yanshun, Vice Minister of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, said at the meeting. 

In terms of the green development of printing industry, Liu Bingjiang, director of Department of Atmospheric Environment in the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China, introduced that in recent years, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China and General Administration of Press and Publication of the People's Republic of China have cooperated closely, actively carried out the green printing work, signed the Agreement of Strategic Cooperation on the Implementation of Green Printing, issued the Announcement on the Implementation of Green Printing, and formulated and revised many environmental signs and standards, such as lithography printing and gravure printing. According to Liu Bingjiang, national elementary and middle school textbooks have been fully covered by green printing for 4 consecutive years, and the fields of bills, tickets, and food and drug packaging boxes are also actively promoting green printing. More than 1,100 enterprises have passed the green printing certification, and a large number of environmentally friendly raw and auxiliary materials, production processes and pollution prevention equipment have been widely used. Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Shandong and other places have successively issued pollutant emission standards for the printing industry to improve the environmental protection level of the printing industry.  

"The green development of the printing industry has made some achievements. But at the same time, we must also see that there are still some problems in the ecological environment protection of the printing industry." Liu Bingjiang introduced that the current problem of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) pollution in the printing industry is still obvious. The total emissions of VOCs in the printing industry nationwide exceeds 1.1 million tons, accounting for about 10% of industrial emissions, of which packaging and printing industry emissions account for 80% of the whole printing industry. Among the 98,000 printing companies in China, only more than 1,100 can get green certification, which is a little more than 1%.  

He Kebin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and dean of the School of Environment of Tsinghua University, introduced in the speech at the conference that the proportion of non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC) emissions from solvent use sources in China's packaging and printing industry remained between 8% and 13% from 1990 to 2017. The contribution rate of emissions of 1,3,5-triethylbenzene and 2-propanol in packaging and printing industry is as high as 37.9% and 39.7% respectively, which contributes to the generation of ozone and secondary organic aerosols. He Kebin introduced that in the "Blue Sky Protection Campaign", the pain points of ozone and secondary organic particulate pollution are focused on VOCs. The pain point of VOCs emission reduction is the solvent, while the printing industry is an important user of the solvent. "In the process of green development, the printing industry still has great potential that can be tapped and will make more important contributions to the "Blue Sky Protection Campaign" in the future." He Kebin said.