IBM’s toxic, chemical ink dumping seeps into upstate New York country club
16 11 2007
Toxic inks dump in Lagos, Nigeria, www.ban.org 2007
For many, printing comes across as an environmentally benign industry – just how harmful can cartridge inks and paper be? This week’s investigation from the Press & Sun Bulletin (Birmingham, New York) suggests a darker story about the negative human health effects of traditional printing industry inks.
Subterranean chemicals, including those part of a class called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), from a former chemical burn pit owned by IBM in the pre-regulation 1950s through to the 1970s has likely re-emerged and spread under an upstate New York Country Binghamton Country Club property to the south, according to recent tests overseen by state health and environmental officials.
Exposure to VOCs, such as the “acids, metal strippers, printing inks, ether and various solvents” IBM used for manufacturing operations for plating and printing, pose health threats such as cancer to brain damage.
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While HP may deny the harmful health effects of VOCs, Green Printer uses a variety of eco-friendly printing methods and inks. Depending on a job, Green Printer uses everything from soy and vegetable based inks to dry ink used on digital press. Dry ink is by far the most eco-friendly solution because it doesn’t emit any VOCs in the printing process.
Thanks for highlighting this story. Tom Wilbur has been an ace covering the twin issues of groundwater pollution and vapor intrusion from old toxic waste spills/dumps. I’m not sure about your interpretation: I’d bet the bulk of that pollution is from solvents used in chip manufacturing and the like, not printer inks. (Also, it’s Binghamton, not Birmingham.)
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