Do I legally need to continue rag service?

adub · #1 (**permalink**) 03-13-2010, 02:21 PM

I have a small shop (AB dick 360 and Heidelberg 46-2) We have always had a uniform service pickup our dirty rags (shop towels) for washing the presses for ~$100/month. Our volume is way down and we now only use a few dozen a month, kind of a waste of money. We are located in Los Angeles County. Anybody have any suggestions to cut costs? Disposable towels maybe? Thanks.

RNRPRINTINGNMAILING · #2 (**permalink**) 03-13-2010, 02:37 PM

Well do they supply the rags too.
And no you don't have to, but that is not a lot of money,
figure the cost of the other towels is for a month.
Or see if anyone on craigslist has rags they dont need.

Good Luck

Craig · #3 (**permalink**) 03-13-2010, 05:48 PM

We use all disposable 4" cotton and those blue towels.

ALM135 · #4 (**permalink**) 03-13-2010, 08:40 PM

What about switching to a bi-monthly rag schedule?

OffsetGuy@presstechnician.com · #5 (**permalink**) 03-13-2010, 08:52 PM

Adub,
It is simple. Call your rag supplier and explain to him your situation and if he is any kind of a good business person he will help you to lower your costs. I am sure he needs your business as much as you need to lower your costs.
If you wish to dust the office by all means use those shop towels in a roll, if you wish to clean your presses nothing beats a rag.

minutemanjon · #6 (**permalink**) 03-14-2010, 11:13 AM

We have the same thoughts and issues.
After considerable discussion, we have so far elected to continue the rag service because it really is the best operational way to go. Paper type towels don't meet the need like rags.
The other thought is environmental concerns. Our past landlord was concerned about all this and went away happy after we explained the entire rag process.... End of concern and no problems there.
Not up to speed on the technicalities, but the rag service moves the environmental problems to that company. You pay for it, but problem avoidance is sometimes the best way and the cost isn't really too big all things considered.
We will probably re-think the issue if press operations continue to decline.
Hope this opinion helps.

adub · #7 (**permalink**) 03-16-2010, 09:03 PM

Thanks for the input. I just ordered some disposable rags from affordablewipers.com they seem pretty cheap. I will try and argue with my rag service, last time I spoke to them a year or 2 ago they would not budge about cutting down the frequency of our pickups. Thanks again.

Mark Wiedener · #8 (**permalink**) 06-22-2010, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adub

I have a small shop (AB dick 360 and Heidelberg 46-2) We have always had a uniform service pickup our dirty rags (shop towels) for washing the presses for ~$100/month. Our volume is way down and we now only use a few dozen a month, kind of a waste of money. We are located in Los Angeles County. Anybody have any suggestions to cut costs? Disposable towels maybe? Thanks.

We have clients using disposible shop towels and using them 3x each with our Dry Raggler system. Dry Raggler also makes them deemed safe for disposal since all the waste product is pinched out of it.

Check it out at Welcome to Greenflow! and go to the top right of the pull down menu and go to "other." Just another option we have been having success with our clients.

RGPW17100 · #9 (**permalink**) 06-22-2010, 06:53 PM

We use towels made by nubtex. They are lint free so are great for removing hickeys from plates without adding more. We drain all the QM clean up tray mess into 5 gallon barrels and recycle. Not sure why throwing a nubtex paper rag in the garbage would be any different then the clean up mats you use on the 360 unless you have a clean up attachment for it.