Environment - PNEB - Newspaper and Magazine Recycling

Sustainable Resources

Research & Education

Sustainable Resource Use (continued)

Environmentally Friendly Inks

Inks used to print newspapers and magazines in Australia are completely safe. Black and colour inks have no added heavy metals and contain either vegetable oils produced from crops like soya beans and canola, or non-hazardous mineral oils of very high purity. Most inks actually use a mixture of these two types of oil. Oils comprise about 50% of newspaper ink - the rest is made up of pigment, resins and solvents.

Soil conditioner containing ink residue
and other mill wastes

After being used on newspapers, our inks have a second life. The ink and paper fibre residue resulting from the de-inking process is dried to create a substance looking somewhat like breakfast cereal.

It meets the NSW Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines for biosolids applied to agricultural land and is in high demand by farmers in the Albury area because of its excellent soil conditioning properties.