The Label Printers, Aurora, IL, USA, has chosen TLMI’s Label Initiative For the Environment to guide the company’s ongoing efforts to become greener. Project LIFE, as it is called, was recently created by the Tag & Label Manufacturers Institute as a program that enables converters to institute and maintain sound environmental practices in their plants and in production.

George Tommasi, the LIFE team leader at The Label Printers, says, “We decided that we wanted to explore an environmental program because we wanted to make our existing green efforts more structured, focused, and visible. We looked at investing in a number of different environmental programs. One of the main reasons we chose LIFE is that it is designed for label converters, and we felt that we would get better results from a program that came from people who understood the printing industry – specifically label printing.” Tommasi, the company’s director of human resources, is also its Illinois EPA Compliance Representative.

The Label Printers’ green efforts had grown out of an ISO/CQIP environment. Individuals within the organization would offer suggestions on how to make incremental quality improvements and/or incremental cost savings by doing things such as reducing the use of solvent-based inks, changing lighting in the plant, recycling scrap, etc. “LIFE,” says TLP General Manager Lori Campbell, “gives us a way to formalize and perhaps speed up what we were already doing. It will give us the means to have a ‘green’ program with progressively greater impact.”

The first goal of the LIFE team is to learn more about the program, and then go through the process of establishing a “stake in the ground” on their current efforts. Says Tommasi, “We need to look at what we have done to be a good environmental steward over the years, and then we can identify our LIFE goals, and how to accomplish and measure those goals. LIFE provides both a self-audit and an external audit to help us identify areas that will allow us to reduce our environmental footprint, and lessen our environmental impact.” TLMI has partnered with NSF International, The Public Health and Safety Company, to conduct the external audits.

The Label Printers owns and operates two facilities in Aurora, manufacturing and distributing labels and packaging products to customers in 25 countries around the world.