Illinois Air Pollution Control Regulations

Screen printing facilities in Illinois are regulated as non-major CTG sources. Air pollution control requirements will not be required unless the facility's potential to emit is 100 tons of Volatile organic compounds or more per year. However, a facility cannot emit more than 8 pounds of volatile organic compounds per hour from each emission source. Each press is considered an emission source. Furthermore, if a screen-printing facility applies coatings and/or adhesives, then that part of the operation will be treated as a surface coating operation.  All facility emissions will be counted to determine applicability.

Facilities emitting more than 3 pounds of VOC per hour or 15 pounds of VOC per day would fall under this regulatory requirement. Under the state's surface coating regulations, the facility would be required to use inks with no more than 2.9 pounds of VOC per gallon, less exempt solvents, as applied on paper substrates, 3.8 pounds of VOC per gallon, less exempt solvents, as applied, on vinyl substrates, and up to 4.0 pounds of VOC per gallon, less exempt solvents, as applied for metal substrates. 

Section 218.187, Other Industrial Solvent Cleaning Operations, applies to all facilities emitting 15 pounds a day or more of Volatile Organic Materials from cleaning operations calculated without air pollution control equipment. The following activities are exempt:

• Stripping of cured coatings, inks, or adhesives including screen reclamation activities
• Cleaning operations in pre-press areas
• Cleaning operations associated with digital printing
• Cleaning of plastic-based or vinyl-based substrates for use in the screen-printing process when using UV curable ink and coating systems;

Screen printing facilities must use products that contain no more than 4.2 lbs. of VOC per gallon of material, or solvents with a vapor pressure of less than 8mmHg at 20 degrees C.

If your facility does not exceed the 15 pounds per day threshold, then you must submit certification to Agency declaring that your facility is exempt because you do not emit 15 pounds or more VOM daily. You should include calculations demonstrating that daily emissions never exceed 15 pounds of VOM.

If you emit more than 15 lbs. of VOM per day, then you must submit a declaration that all cleaning operations are in compliance; identify each cleaning operation and each VOM containing material used; and if using emission control system, identify the system.

The following records must be maintained:

• Name and Identification of each cleaning solvent
• Date, time preparation of each batch
• VOM content
• Amount of solvent/water used to create batch
• VOM content of product, as used