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Visionary, a leading innovator in sustainable signage solutions, has launched its Visionary Green recycling program, designed to eliminate self-adhesive signage waste from landfill and create a circular economy for the signage industry.  The program provides a simple, circular pathway for end-of-life signage: businesses can replace traditional PVC self-adhesive signage with Visionary’s PVC-free alternatives, return used signage materials for collection, and recycle them into sustainable products.

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Following a successful management buyout of core distributor operations from Aldus Graphics, a new specialist distributor - CS Graphics – has been borne, serving the label and packaging industry across Australia and New Zealand. The new company is being led by industry veterans Chris Bodger and Sheetal Mishra as co-Directors, bringing decades of combined experience in the narrow web printing and converting sector.

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In the increasingly hotly contested area of narrow-web digital label presses, another industry-renowned pioneer of digital colour printing, is the latest to throw its hat into the ring, with the Labelexpo debut of the TX300, a narrow-web digital label press powered by Xeicon’s Titon toner technology.

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Epson has unveiled a new compact printing solution that it is confident is the perfect fit for entry-level garment printing and entrepreneurial creators ready to launch or grow their apparel business. The solution includes the SureColor F1070 hybrid direct-to-film (DTF) and direct-to-garment (DTG) printer, complete with a ‘robust set of inks and maintenance supplies to empower serious creators to bring their designs to life on a wide range of fabrics and products’.

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Huge congratulations to industry stalwart John Wall for over two decades both in leadership roles with Roland DG and as a (volunteer) member of the Board of Visual Connections Australia. His service to the printing and graphic arts sector is highly commendable and the words passion, grace, tenacity, wisdom and humour have all been appropriately bandied around in announcements about his recent decision to retire.

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Currently enjoying its 11^th season as the official wallpaper product sponsor for popular Channel 9 reality TV show ‘The Block’, renowned design and printing company Grafico has once again helped the contestants deliver against a seemingly impossible challenge. This time the brief was to capture artwork designed by each of the 5 pairs of contestants using Canon imaging technology, digitise and print it as custom wallpaper using a Canon Colorado, all in one ‘mega-day’.

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Having followed the story through from when Landa Corporation’s financial struggles started to surface, to a stay of execution granted by the court to enable them to raise more funds to keep the company afloat…the increasingly inevitable conclusion has now been reached and FIMI Opportunity Funds has been successful in acquiring the debt-ridden digital printing company in a relatively complex USD$80m debt restructuring plan.

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One of Australasia’s leading paper and packaging companies, Opal (a member of NIPPON Paper Group), opened the doors to its Melbourne facility recently for a self-styled Innovation Expo, which enabled the company to show customers its application of new digital printing and cutting technologies, ‘creating a wonderland awash with vibrant colours, show-stopping design and clever engineering’.

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Durst Group has announced the full integration of GMG’s spectral colour management technology into its proprietary Durst Workflow software as well as into the open Smart Factory portfolio of its Open Software Initiative. Michael Deflorian, Director Business Unit Software & Solutions at Durst Group, says: “This will enable us to deliver new levels of colour consistency: fully automated and highly scalable.”

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Headquartered out of a facility at 10, Orbit Drive in Rosedale, Auckland, a dedicated Orafol NZ operation has now been officially launched and welcomed into the broader ANZ fold, marking a major milestone in the company’s expansion and further commitment to its local presence across Australasia.

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swissQprint has officially unveiled the last two new flatbed printer models in its award-winning Generation 5 line-up – the Topi 5 and Oryx 5 - and exclusive Australian swissQprint distributor, Pozitive Sign & Graphic Supplies, has confirmed that all five Generation 5 printers (including the Nyala 5, Impala 5 and Kudu 5 can be ordered locally from today.

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Industry reports that Starleaton has recently re-commenced trading as Starleaton Pty Ltd, using the same website and branding of the business that was recently placed into liquidation. are likely to be met with a mixed reception with many employers, suppliers and even customers presumably still significantly impacted by the crash of the company earlier this year.

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FIMI’s proposed USD$80m acquisition of Landa Digital Printing has hit a potential speed-hump, midst claims that the administrators - Sigal Rosen-Rechav and Shlomi Filiba – have inserted ‘unauthorized costs’ and ‘an unacceptable and unauthorized deviation’ on FIMI’s original offer. Representing FIMI, partner Gillon Beck acknowledged: “This is a very complex deal. It’s not a walk in the park, it’s very, very difficult, but if we didn’t believe there was a chance of success, we wouldn’t be here.”

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Color-Logic is widely recognised as the benchmark in metallic and special effect design technology, so receipt of formal certification that the Konica Minolta AccurioLabel 400 Digital Press is compatible with the Color-Logic process, offers an industry-recognised assurance of the press’ capacity to produce high-impact, vibrant colour, metallic labels.

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A technology preview model of Screen’s new Truepress LABEL 520AQ water-based inkjet label press, will be shown on the Screen stand D55 in Hall 5 at the upcoming Labelexpo Europe later this month (16^th-19^th September, Fira Barcelona Gran Via exhibition centre). This is in addition to previously released news (see here) that Screen’s Truepress LABEL 350UV SAI-S digital press will be printing live and continuously throughout all four days of the show.

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Widely recognised as one of the world’s leading providers of renewable packaging, biomaterials, and wooden construction products, the latest investment in Stora Enso’s Oulu (Finland) mill and production unit, tips its investment scales to just over €1.7bn between 2019 and 2025.

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As the dust starts to settle on the GBP£146m acquisition of Metamark by UPM Raflatac, Ball & Doggett is poised to expand the Metamark product portfolio locally and has launched the Metamark Passport Competition to showcase the versatility and creativity of the Metamark product range.

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Konica Minolta Australia, Macquarie University, and the Australia and New Zealand Recycling Platform’s (ANZRP) TechCollect have partnered to launch the ‘Rethink e-recycling Drive’: a community initiative aimed at reducing landfill and giving unwanted technology a second life.

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Avery Dennison has signed an agreement to acquire the U.S.-based flooring adhesives business of Meridian Adhesives Group – which includes Taylor Adhesives, Polycom and Frontier Products brands – at a purchase price of USD$390m. Upon completion of the transaction, the flooring adhesives business will become part of the Avery Dennison Materials Group business.

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In line with its Reconciliation Action pledge, Ricoh Australia has partnered with not-for-profit organisation, Yalari, to fully fund a six-year scholarship for one indigenous student’s secondary education from Year 7-12. Waverley Stanley AM, Founding Director of Yalari says: “This scholarship is creating pathways that will ripple through families and communities for generations to come.”

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Driving an ambitious agenda towards the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across its value chain by more than 50% by 2030 and reaching ‘net-zero’ by 2050, Epson’s targets have now been formally approved by the Science Based Targets initiative. SBTi is a corporate climate action organization that has developed standards, tools and guidance to enable companies ‘to set GHG emissions reductions targets in line with what is needed to keep global heating below catastrophic levels and reach net-zero by 2050 at latest’.