Green Printing Policies Continue To Make Efforts, And Water-based Inks Are Accelerating The Replacement Of Traditional Inks

Green printing policies continue to make efforts, and water-based inks are accelerating the replacement of traditional inks

On April 29, 2026, combined with the latest industry research data and industrial policy guidance, the green transformation process of the domestic printing industry continued to accelerate, driven by the dual drive of national environmental protection policies and market costs, water-based inks ushered in a key turning point in replacing traditional solvent-based inks, becoming the core breakthrough of the green upgrading of the printing industry, helping the whole industry achieve low-carbon and environmentally friendly production goals.

In recent years, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other departments have jointly issued a number of policy documents such as the "Green Design Guidelines for Industrial Products" and the "Implementation Plan for the Prevention and Control of VOCs Pollution in the Printing Industry", clearly restricting the use of highly polluting and highly volatile solvent-based materials, and strictly controlling the emission of volatile organic compounds in the printing industry. Traditional solvent-based inks contain a large amount of organic solvents, which will release a large amount of VOCs during production and use, which not only pollutes the atmospheric environment, but also endangers the health of front-line operators, and environmental protection disadvantages are becoming increasingly prominent. Water-based inks use water as diluents, do not contain benzene, xylene and other harmful substances, have the advantages of low odor, low emission, flame retardant safety and other advantages, fully comply with the national green production standards, and become the preferred material for environmental protection transformation in the industry.

At the policy level, the ecological and environmental departments in many places have introduced refined control measures, and in the emergency response plan for heavy pollution weather, it is clear that printing enterprises that comply with the use of water-based inks and other environmentally friendly materials can obtain temporary production suspension exemption policies, which greatly reduces the production and operation risks of compliant enterprises. At the same time, various localities have successively launched green manufacturing subsidies and environmental protection technological transformation support funds to encourage small and medium-sized printing enterprises to replace environmental protection equipment and transform ink systems, reduce the cost threshold of green transformation of enterprises, and further stimulate the enthusiasm of enterprises to upgrade and transform.

The optimization of market-side costs has further accelerated the implementation process of "oil to water". In the past, the high price of water-based ink and the high requirements for adaptation equipment were the main problems hindering the popularization of small and medium-sized printing factories. Nowadays, with the continuous maturity of production technology and the continuous expansion of production capacity, domestic chemical enterprises continue to optimize production processes and greatly reduce production costs. At present, the market price of high-quality industrial-grade water-based ink has dropped to a reasonable range, and the price gap with traditional solvent ink has been narrowing, and the cost performance has been significantly improved. At the same time, ink companies have simultaneously launched improved products adapted to old printing equipment, which can complete the switching without large-scale equipment replacement, reducing the transformation pressure of small and medium-sized enterprises.

At present, food packaging, pharmaceutical packaging, cultural and creative books and periodicals, daily necessities printing and other fields have taken the lead in fully popularizing water-based ink. Large printing enterprises have established green production workshops to achieve environmentally friendly production in the whole process; Small and medium-sized printing factories have also gradually phased out backward and highly polluting materials and gradually completed the upgrade of ink systems. Industry data shows that the proportion of domestic green printing output value has steadily increased this year, and green transformation is penetrating from leading enterprises to the whole industry.

Green and low-carbon has become an inevitable trend in the development of the manufacturing industry, and the printing industry, as a pillar industry of light industry, is unstoppable in environmental protection transformation. In the future, with the continuous upgrading of environmental protection standards and the continuous iteration of environmental protection material technology, the market penetration rate of water-based inks will be further improved. Industry enterprises will also take green transformation as an opportunity to take into account environmental protection and economic benefits, promote the formation of a low-carbon, clean and sustainable new development model of the printing industry, and contribute to ecological environmental protection and high-quality industrial development.