Management of Solvents and Wipes in the Printing Industry

Printers use solvents and wipes to clean oil-based ink from equipment. Solvent cleaning typically generates hazardous waste solvents, and used cleanup wipes contaminated with ink and solvent residue. By minimizing and recycling hazardous solvent waste, printers can save money while protecting their workers and the environment. This fact sheet provides general guidance on reducing and managing solvent related wastes.Ope

How to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Lithographic Ink Wastes

Ink waste creates a disposal cost for the printer, but also represents a less than optimum use of purchased raw materials. In the extremely competitive world of commercial printing, reducing ink wastes and their costs just makes good business sense. This fact sheet discusses several ink management techniques that increase the opportunities to prevent, reuse, and recycle waste ink. A list of ink recycling service providers is also included.Ope

Potentially dangerous ingredients in personal care and cosmetic products: an analysis and comparison of United States and European policy

In the United States, only 11 ingredients are prohibited or restricted from inclusion in cosmetics, compared to over 1,300 ingredients banned from inclusion in cosmetics sold in Europe. Some legislators have expressed concern that these chemicals can increase the risk of cancer, endocrine and reproductive disorders, and more, but policy action has been minimal. The presence of dangerous chemicals in cosmetics should be a focus of public health leaders and policy makers in the United States, because without further action, rates of disease associated with these ingredients may increase. This paper will define the problem of chemicals in cosmetic products and propose changes to policy to correct the problem. This will be done through a review of existing policies and a discussion of the significance of the problem including the types of diseases that result. This paper proposes that harmful chemicals are present in products that many consumers believe are safe, and makes recommendations for additional regulation of the cosmetics industry. Along with legislative changes, this paper recommends that educational programs must also be developed to bring awareness to this issue, and a systematic review of all potentially risky substances should also be conducted with alternative options proposed, as well as additional policies to expand regulation in order to emphasize public health

Synthetic Gene Circuits for Self-Regulating and Temporal Delivery of Anti-Inflammatory Biologic Drugs in Engineered Tissues

The recent advances in the fields of synthetic biology and genome engineering open up new possibilities for creating cell-based therapies. We combined these tools to target repair of articular cartilage, a tissue that lacks a natural ability to regenerate, in the presence of arthritic diseases. To this end, we developed cell-based therapies that harness disease pathways and the unique properties of articular cartilage for prescribed, localized, and controlled delivery of biologics, creating the next generation of cell therapies and new classes of synthetic circuits. We created tissue engineered cartilage from murine induced pluripotent stem cells that had the ability to sense inflammatory stimuli to produce an anti-cytokine biologic to self-regulate and inhibit inflammation. To create this gene circuit, we developed a synthetic promoter activated by NF-κB signaling, a key inflammatory pathway activated within chondrocytes in arthritis. This lentiviral system was capable of producing an anti-cytokine therapeutic, IL-1Ra, and protecting tissue engineered cartilage from inflammation-mediated degradation. Chondrocytes within articular cartilage respond to mechanobiologic signals through ion channels, such as the TRPV4 ion channel, involved in mechanotransduction. We developed synthetic cell-based therapies that could sense mechanical stimuli, such as activation of TRPV4, and produce prescribed biologic drugs in response to mechanical stimuli. With this approach, we created two novel mechanogenetic circuits activated by TRPV4 that produced our therapeutic transgene with different drug release kinetics. The cartilage circadian clock plays a key role in maintaining cartilage homeostasis and integrity. When the circadian clock is desynchronized, such as in the presence of inflammation, articular cartilage begins to degrade. Therefore, we created clock-preserving synthetic circuits that are capable of preserving circadian rhythms even in the presence of inflammation. In addition to creating these circuits, we also characterized the circadian clock throughout chondrogenic differentiation and uncovered interesting characteristics between circadian disruption and extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation that can be further examined to better understand the relationship between inflammation and circadian rhythm disruption. Finally, we developed the newest generation of cell-based therapies by creating chronogenetic therapies. Expanding beyond preserving circadian rhythms, we developed synthetic chronogenetic circuits driven by the circadian clock for temporal delivery of biologic drugs at specific times of day. This approach was motivated by the field of chronotherapy and the increase in efficacy of drugs when administered at specific times of day. We developed the first cell-based chronotherapy capable of producing an anti-inflammatory biologic at a specific time to combat the peak of inflammatory flares exhibited by patients with chronic inflammation. Overall, the work in this dissertation builds upon existing synthetic biology and genome engineering tools to create smart cell therapies that are activated by a prescribed input and can produce a therapeutic transgene in a controlled manner. These synthetic circuits provide novel strategies to target inflammation in an arthritic joint and can be expanded for other applications to create better and more effective therapeutics to treat disease

Management of Solvents and Wipes in the Printing Industry

Printers use solvents and wipes to clean oil-based ink from equipment. Solvent cleaning typically generates hazardous waste solvents, and used cleanup wipes contaminated with ink and solvent residue. By minimizing and recycling hazardous solvent waste, printers can save money while protecting their workers and the environment. This fact sheet provides general guidance on reducing and managing solvent related wastes.Ope

Pollution Prevention Checklist For Lithographic Printers

This checklist contains a menu of pollution prevention activities for you to consider applying at your shop, organized by printing operation, e.g., film developing, plate processing, etc. Within each of these categories, basic recommended practices are given in bold, followed by intermediate recommended practices which require operating changes or some modest investment. Alternative technologies, in italics, cover practices that require investment in new equipment.Ope

Reduce Image Processing Costs: Minimize Waste And Recover Silver

This fact sheet describes how printers can take actions that will help them to recover silver while generating less waste during image processing. These wastes typically include film, developer, fixer, and wash water, all of which require proper management and disposal. Film, fixer and to some extent wash water, can contain silver, which is a regulated metal. These can also contain hydroquinone, though hydroquinone is not regulated under RCRA as a hazardous waste. This fact sheet describes how to manage these wastes in an environmentally sound manner, and emphasizes the importance of recovering silver from both a business and environmental perspective.Ope

A Checklist to Help Printers Reduce and Prevent Pollution

This checklist contains a menu of practical actions a printing company can take to reduce wastes and emissions. These actions will help a company improve its environmental compliance, while also reducing its costs and liabilities from wastes.Ope

Hydrogel encapsulation of genome-engineered stem cells for long-term self-regulating anti-cytokine therapy

Biologic therapies have revolutionized treatment options for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) but their continuous administration at high doses may lead to adverse events. Thus, the development of improved drug delivery systems that can sense and respond commensurately to disease flares represents an unmet medical need. Toward this end, we generated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that express interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra, an inhibitor of IL-1) in a feedback-controlled manner driven by the macrophage chemoattractant protein-1 (Ccl2) promoter. Cells were seeded in agarose hydrogel constructs made from 3D printed molds that can be injected subcutaneously via a blunt needle, thus simplifying implantation of the constructs, and the translational potential. We demonstrated that the subcutaneously injected agarose hydrogels containing genome-edited Ccl2-IL1Ra iPSCs showed significant therapeutic efficacy in the K/BxN model of inflammatory arthritis, with nearly complete abolishment of disease severity in the front paws. These implants also exhibited improved implant longevity as compared to the previous studies using 3D woven scaffolds, which require surgical implantation. This minimally invasive cell-based drug delivery strategy may be adapted for the treatment of other autoimmune or chronic diseases, potentially accelerating translation to the clinic