July 30, 2007

            Streamline Graphix Raises a Biodegradable Banner for Sustainability
By Kristin Abkemeier

            Starting this summer, outdoor advertising banners and signs in San Francisco will turn over a new green leaf.  Dogpatch-based Streamline Graphix will be the first Bay Area printer to print their large-scale outdoor banners on BIOflex, the only biodegradable vinyl sign material currently available.  The material, in combination with eco-solvent inks, results in high-quality exterior signs that will decompose in landfills when they’re retired.
            “We are not in an eco-friendly industry, but we’re trying to do our part,” said Nancy Longo, Streamline’s co-owner and chief operating officer.  The six-person firm produces large-scale graphic signs for clients throughout the Bay Area, including the San Francisco Zoo, City Carshare, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and top advertising agencies and marketing firms.
            Besides being first in the Bay Area to use the new biodegradable vinyl material, Streamline is one of the only printers in the region to rely on eco-solvent inks that release fewer fumes.  Longo said that while Streamline attracts customers by its reputation for value, quality, and customer service, “if customers want to try to help the environment, we want to help them do that.”
            Digitally-produced outdoor signs have become so common that an urban dweller might not notice them any more.  Detailed photographic imagery wraps the sides of buses and delivery trucks, and hangs on outdoor walls in places where a traditional advertising billboard can’t reach.  Soon enough these banners are taken down, thrown into the trash, and sent to the landfill.
            An outdoor banner needs to withstand sun, rain, and wind; the material needs to be durable, and the inks need to be lightfast, waterproof, and resistant to abrasion. Polyvinyl chloride, also known as PVC or vinyl, is the preferred material for these reasons, but it doesn’t degrade once deposited in a landfill. The Vinyl News Service website promoting vinyl states, “PVC is so stable in landfills that vinyl membranes have been used as landfill liners and caps.” However, when landfill fires occur – and there are an average of 8,400 landfill fires annually among the nation’s 2,200 landfills, according to a 2002 U.S. Fire Administration report -- burning PVC releases dioxins, chemicals that can accumulate in human systems and cause a variety of harmful health effects.
            Streamline Graphix will receive its first supply of BIOflex this summer. “BIOflex is still PVC-coated vinyl, but with an additive,” said Jaime Giannantonio, marketing manager at Ultraflex, which manufactures the material. When BIOflex is deposited into a landfill, microbes that thrive in the conditions of darkness, heat, and moisture are attracted to the additive. “They eat away at the BIOflex and it becomes biodegradable,” Giannantonio said, adding that Ultraflex adjusted the amount of additive to enable BIOflex to disintegrate completely within three to five years. The microbes emit a nontoxic gas, and only a sodium powder residue remains afterward.
            Vinyl’s smooth surface has required the use of inks that include strong solvents to print high-quality images on outdoor display banners.  The solvents release toxic fumes that can cause health risks if they’re inhaled or come into contact with workers’ eyes and skin while setting up the printer or during the printing process.
            While not necessarily greener than conventional solvents in the way they’re manufactured, the eco-solvents in the inks used at Streamline release fewer fumes. “When you walk in, you don’t smell anything,” said Longo, as she shows the company’s industrial loft space, which has no special ventilation installed.  Streamline has been using eco-solvent inks since early-2006.     
Besides keeping Streamline’s own working environment clean, and relying on recyclable paper as much as possible, Longo and her business partner, Bill Slattery, also reduce their profit margin on jobs using the eco-solvent inks so that they can provide them at competitive prices. And clients are increasingly asking that greener materials be used.
            Anita Daley, City Carshare’s marketing director, chose Streamline to print a few hundred banners to hang over the Bay Area parking lots in which their cars are located. “We do like Streamline because they offer the eco-friendly ink,” said Daley, whose organization has an explicit goal of reducing car ownership. Though conventional vinyl is used in City Carshare’s banners, they will stay on display until they’re well-worn. “We need the banners for the longer term and need them to be strong, and with the eco-friendly inks, they’re still a durable product,” said Daley.
            “On a day-to-day basis, running your own business is so difficult,” said Longo, citing the costs of taxes and employees, among other challenges. “But making a baby step [towards sustainability] feels good.”          
            Doing what’s best for the planet is not the easiest path. BIOflex costs up to 15 percent more than conventional vinyl materials. Longo would like to buy an electric car for making deliveries and decorate it with their own banner. But such a purchase remains as yet a green dream for Streamline Graphix. “We’re struggling to survive as a San Francisco small business,” said Longo. “And the costs of being green are not always low.”