Environment & Safety

Welcome to the EHS Affairs Compliance Page. Since printers are classified as manufacturers, virtually all regulatory compliance requirements apply. Compliance issues are those regulatory requirements that you have a legal obligation to meet. These can be overwhelming and confusing. Here you will find the information and resources you need to cut through the confusion and understand what you specifically need to do for compliance.

Regardless of the compliance concern or issue, the EHS Affairs team can apply the necessary expertise and knowledge to help solve a problem, prevent trouble, or respond to an enforcement action or citation. With nearly 45 years of combined printing industry-specific experience, a simple phone call or email could literally save you thousands of dollars in consulting fees, wasted time, and possibly fines.

The EHS Affairs team is actively helping its members with compliance issues every day. The assistance from the EHS staff can be tailored to meet your specific needs ranging from answering questions, providing program templates, or providing onsite consultation. In addition to working directly with individual printers, our staff also works in conjunction with other consultants, attorneys, and, if necessary, with individual regulatory agencies on behalf of the member.

In representing printers directly to regulatory agencies or providing specific guidance so that the member can represent themselves, the EHS Affairs team has been able to achieve accurate and satisfactory resolutions. In many instances, citations have been successfully challenged with penalties greatly reduced or completely eliminated.

Success with compliance begins with an understanding of the regulations and taking timely action to meet deadlines, requirements, and avoid problems.

The EHS regulatory areas affecting the printing industry include:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) EPA’s main responsibility is the protection of human health and the environment from pollution. One of EPA’s responsibilities is to develop, implement, and enforce regulations that include air pollution, waste management and disposal, waste water discharges, storm water discharges, reporting the release of toxic chemical use and disposition, hazardous chemical storage, oil spill prevention, controlling the manufacturing and importation of toxic chemicals, accidental spill release reporting, and response and cleanup of contaminated property. 

In addition to the federal requirements, there are state and local requirements as well. EPA sets the minimum standards that need to be met, and the state and local government agencies can and sometimes do impose stricter requirements.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) OSHA’s sole responsibility is employee safety and health protection within a facility or at the workplace. OSHA is responsible for developing, implementing, and enforcing safety and health standards and regulations such as machine guarding, Lockout/Tagout, Hazard Communication, etc. OSHA works with employers and employees to foster effective safety and health programs which reduce workplace hazards.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) DOT covers many aspects of transportation, and the area that covers printers is the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). PHMSA establishes regulations that ensure the safe and secure movement of hazardous materials by all transportation modes, including the nation's pipelines. Since printers can be “shippers” of hazardous materials, they need to understand the registration and meet the training requirements for employees involved in the management of hazardous materials.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) DHS responsibility is to protect the American people and country from many different threats. The one area where DHS affects printers and their operation is the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard, which is a risk-based performance standard aimed at certain facilities that store certain chemicals above specific thresholds. 

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) CPSC oversees consumer product safety issues and is the agency responsible for implementing the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), which limits the amount of lead and phthalates allowed in children’s products and requires printers to test and certify the lead and phthalate content of the children’s products they produce.  

For more information contact Rick Hartwig at rhartwig@printing.org