Paper
CCS Printing has had a long standing relationship with Seadrunar Recycling. Seadrunar (Seattle Drug & Narcotic Center) Recycling was established in 1979 to provide their clients with a work therapy environment in which to learn supervisory and general job skills and responsibilities. Seadrunar Recycling is a private, non-profit company providing paper recycling services to over 800 businesses in the greater King County area.
On a monthly average, CCS recycles nearly 20 tons of paper and paper products. This has a huge, positive impact on our environment. To put that into perspective, in one year CCS saves our environment:

• 4,080 trees – which will absorb 195,840 pounds of carbon dioxide annually and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 8,160 human beings
• 91,200 gallons of oil – this could be used to produce enough gasoline to fill an average car’s gas tank 2,850 times
• 720 cubic yards of landfill space
• 984,000 kilowatts of energy – enough energy to power the average American home for 82 years
• 1,680,000 gallons of water – the equivalent of 23 years of average water use for one person

But paper recycling should come naturally to a printing company--after all we’ve been doing it for 20 years. CCS Printing produces much more than paper waste and we are doing something about that as well.

Aluminum
CCS employees have proudly made a commitment to the environment by recycling all aluminum cans. At CCS, our soda machine offers free soda to the workforce so we go through a lot of cans. By placing several aluminum can receptacles throughout our facility we are happy to say that we recycle an average of 4,760 aluminum cans per month. Tossing one aluminum can into the garbage wastes as much energy as pouring out half of that can’s volume of gasoline. By this simple act we are able to conserve the equivalent of 223 gallons of gasoline per month.
In addition to the soda cans, we also recycle the aluminum plates for our MAN Roland 500 press. Monthly we are recycling about 500 aluminum plates.

Plastics
Shrink wrapping is the primary producer of soft plastic waste at CCS Printing. Each piece that gets shrink wrapped produces a small amount of waste. CCS has partnered with Avoco Plastics Corp. in Auburn, WA for removal and recycling of these materials. Avoco also removes and recycles any hard plastics. This includes damaged CD/DVD cases, as well as obsolete CDs and DVDs.

Ink and Toner Cartridges
CCS employs a fleet of high-speed black & white and color printers, all of which use toner cartridges. In addition we have several office copiers, fax machines and laser printers. Our Prepress department has four, large-format ink-jet printers for various tasks and services. All of this equipment produces ink or toner cartridge waste. CCS has teamed with Olympic Office Supply, Xerox and other vendors to establish a recycling program to ensure that these items don’t end up in landfills.

Chemicals and Inks
On a daily basis CCS Printing produces chemical and ink waste – it’s an inevitable part of our business. Fortunately, we have built a relationship with EnviroTech Systems who not only removes our auto wash, photo fixer, oil and used inks, but they actually recycle, distill and redistribute many of those chemicals. CCS chose EnviroTech Systems because it was important to ensure that our chemicals were being put to the best possible use and not just stock piled in containers forever.

Recycling Week
Each spring CCS sponsors Recycling Week at the Bellevue facility. This allows employees to bring in their personal recycling or hard to recycle items and recycle them for free. Such items include batteries, household paper for shredding and/or recycling, toxic chemicals, light bulbs and CFL light bulbs, computer equipment and TVs and radios. To encourage more recycling, CCS also holds a contest for the employees – whoever brings in the most recycling wins a gift valued at $50.