VISITING THE PRINTERS (REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE)

So I've been living in hotels for.

The last week and glad to be able to get back to the farm tonight. But I'm in Warsaw, Poland and my friend Pavel is going to come and pick me up here and we're off to the printers to go and see.

Regenerative agriculture in print.

We've made it.

We've made it at the Princes and I want to introduce you to Pavel, which I find a really hard name to pronounce.

Srczynski.

Do it.

Polish is a very interesting language. But we met in Poland. I came to do a like a farm scale design course, didn't I? In 2014, I guess.

Yes.

And we met there and this guy is very smart, he's a systems thinker. And you had, I mean at that time I see you as like a really key figure for networking people and organizing things. And you are a systems thinker. That's how I think of it, yes.

I think this is like my power.

It's a natural strength that comes out of you. And you were running Cohabitat, which is. Maybe you can tell us a bit about it. But you had like a hundred thousand followers on Facebook when I met you then.

Yeah.

Really at the.

For a couple of years Cohabitat was like a pioneering in natural building and permaculture. Just making a buzz around this, making this popular. Making this.

You were really getting it out to the alternative sort of network here, weren't you? Yeah, I mean you were at the sort of center of that.

We just like organized first festivals in Poland around these topics and made this like stream, I guess.

Yeah, yeah. I was very impressed when I met you and I, I see those qualities come out for you and it's really thanks to this guy that we are here because you put me in contact with the printer when we printed. Making small films work.

Yeah.

And I really love the service. This is like we'll, we'll have a look around and it's a, it's an ethical based printer. I mean printing is a very sort of toxic industry with paper sources, inks and they are doing the best that you can do in that industry. And they, I believe they heat their facility with their own coppice firewood.

Yeah, they have their own part of the forest.

It's pretty cool.

And part of the reason I'm printing here in Poland is that it's affordable now printing just the rough draft edit copies in Sweden cost more than the price of that you buy the book for. So there's no way I could Possibly print this in Sweden and ship it out globally.

So that's why we're here.

And I wanted to come through Poland to meet up with you and see what it looks like, how books get printed. I'm finding that really fascinating and it's really special for me that you're here with me because it wouldn't have ever happened if we hadn't met.

Thank you for inviting me because this is the first time I am here.

You've printed many books here, haven't you?

So you can building books and like 8,000 books here.

Awesome.

So we should have a look inside.

Yeah, let's go.

There is a printing machine.

Okay.

Okay. Pages going there. I just find some pages.

Famous 16 pages.

So this is how sheets. I just want to explain for the viewer. Sheets are printed in eights. That's how that works. And they're printed on both sides. So you have. You have four rollers for the CMYK on both sides, eight plates and the books. So the sheets come out like this. So you'd need to print all the copies of this at a time. But they come in blocks of 6, 16, like so. So right now the book is in process of being printed. And when it's all printed, then it gets folded and cut. And then this would be shredded by a machine to be able to find the glue. And Victor's had to find some special glue for you lot because the book is so thick it needs special glue, otherwise it will probably fall apart. But we were just talking about binding. You can't sew a book like this together, which would be used for the hardcover sort of copy. But when you sew a hardcover book, it gets thicker and so it would end up too thick and too thin. Wouldn't make sense. So they're going to do an awesome job with a special glue. But the paper feels quite nice.

Yeah, I think it is nice. It's not too white. It's nice when you touch it and it feels good.

Awesome. What, what is the plate? The plate is what holds the image for.

The plate is aluminium plate. And on this plate there is an image printed. We can say it's not really printed, but it's imaging with the laser beam. The laser makes the image on the plate, so it's put on the rotating cylinder and the laser is moving through this while this cylinder is rotating and making.

So it's reusable. So.

No, it's not reusable.

So you need this plate for everything.

The plate is covered by some photosensitive material and the laser Is making the. It's like how to say the laser is making the image. We can simplify.

So you need a new photosensitive layer. Each set of pages you make each plate. Is there one here somewhere?

Yeah, sure.

I have no sense of what that actually looks like. Fancy machines. I'm very curious. I hope you enjoy seeing this because I have no idea about how.

Yeah, this is the new plate. But we will see the. We will see the plates from your book. But this is how new plate is separated by paper.

So this is. This is corresponding to the size of about eight A4 pages. Yes. So for each block of 16 pages you need one of these plates and then you obviously keep these. You would then keep these in an archive.

No, we don't.

So if you printed again you would remake.

We have to make the new plates because the system that puts the plates on the machine. Automatic systems that puts the plates on the machine cannot use old plate because when it comes out from the machine it's bended at the edges. It's.

So it must be new.

Must be new.

So it's best to print lots.

Yes.

Less often.

This is our digital printing department. So we print digital small jobs. We can print even like 10 copies.

Of Porsches or.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a toner based printing. Like a big office printing machine.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

So here, here we have folding machines. This is. And this is the machine for the magazines.

You see the. Each set of 16 pages is folded up automatically there.

This is how it comes from the folding machine.

Machinery.

And this with what is this machine for making magazines.

Magazines being made.

This is our production manager.

I see some pages here. So look, this is where your specs and pages come from, folks. How to run an egg packer in.

This is how it comes from the finished machine.

So this would be. These are all the same page.

This is all the same.

Yes.

Crazy. Lots of paper.

This is paper for your book.

Ok.

This is our paper.

80 grams.

80 gram vapor. Wow.

Amazing.

Now the most interesting.

Okay, here's the machine. Can I walk up on here?

Grass and grazing.

Machine. Stop printing.

Okay.

Oh, he's just finished the last step. So what's. This is the. This is the main machine.

This is the main machine.

Yes.

Can you tell us what. I'm just going to get a view from over here. So raw paper is going in at the far end.

The paper is coming from that end. Yeah, he's probably loading paper right now.

Yeah, looks like you. And then you have plates in each of these. We can go over Controllers in each of these.

So we have five printing units for one side and five printing units for another side.

So that's your cmyk?

Yeah, we.

We use four, three, four units. The number five is for special color.

Yeah, if we want.

So this is a Japanese machine.

Yes.

And these guys have had this a few years now. But this is doing the bulk of big book prints. So if you want to pin a page in the book, you load in a stack of paper like this.

And then this machine kicks off.

Best time to be here.

Each click you hear as it's calibrating itself. I think essentially every click up will be a page through. It. Okay, the machine is speeding up now. You can see the sheets come in overlap with this one. Yellow, yellow. So you can see where the colors come in. So they. Each unit has the same plate. No, a plate.

Different place.

I see.

Yeah, different place. The place is over here. Can see the.

Place. So I don't know if you'll be able to hear, but basically the one size. So six, eight pages on one sheet of paper printed here with the four colors. That page is now flipped upside down, down and then the back side is printed here. So you have to make 10 plates for every 16 pieces.

We are not using one unit. This unit is mat and the last unit is ma.

Right.

This unit for extra, you know.

Okay. So machines are full speed. Those of you that to know when you're getting a copy, well, they are going as fast as they can. It's going to take a little while to print all of them and then join them together. You can see there's a lot of papers. Here is this type of grouping station.

This is a control table. So he's taking like for instance, he took the one sheet like a sample.

Where he can check his price.

Now he can check, he can add more in. Like there is a sections here. We can put more ink here or less ink. And this section is for this part. This section is for this part. This section for this part. So you can cover the whole.

Can he check for my spelling and grammar? Make sure it's all correct. For your what? Any spelling mistakes or spelling mistakes?

No, we don't read books here.

So on the backside, these are the old plates. This is like where it all happened. So these are then sent for recycling to a company that reclaims the aluminum. So these are all the pages that have been printed so far. And it'll be hard to make it out, but here you can see parts of eggmobiles. That's obviously the black plate I wish I could take some of these up. This would that yellow. And they're gonna change plates in a moment. Start printing the next page. Ah. It's a major process making a book like this. I hope this is really interesting to you lot to see what just what goes into it. I mean it's a massive job with an incredibly crazy machine. What do you think Neville?

What?

What do you think of that whole thing?

I think you cannot do this by.

In your home in open source.

It's not possible. Pretty amazing machine. So they've just finished printing all of this other pages now. So this is now moving out to the stack and they will take away the plates and put in the new plates. Very cool. I understand now about the plate. That's why they can't be used. So the plate has to be held in shape and the plate is held in the machine by.

Actually this is the reason why it can't be used. This side.

This side. Okay.

Because we are bending this from the beginning.

Yeah.

But here you see the new plates.

These are new plates going in.

Okay.

Getting started with your grazing plan. There you go.

They are bended on this side but not on this side.

Aha.

So that. That's how you attach it in to the machine. Grabbing it.

Yeah.

So that's good to know.

If you're printing books. It's good to do as bigger runs as possible. It's obviously more economic too but less resources go into per book.

Washing cycle is washing all the cylinders.

And we missed that in the film. But the pallet here is up at the top and Victor was saying they've just basically set the wash cycle to clean all the rollers etc in the machine before they install new plates to start the next phase. Super cool you guys. I hope you find this as exciting as I do. It's crazy to see how this whole thing operates. That's a proper bit of kit. They said in three years they've only had to bring a technician out once to deal with a problem and they can generally fix all their problems in house. So seems like a pretty cool kit. What does a machine like this cost? We were talking about this.

We didn't buy the new machine but the new machine like this cost over 2 million euro 2.5.

They come and install it for you.

Yeah, we can. We have ordered installation. We thought it was installation.

Yeah, I think it's good. Okay.

That's the plate there.

So that's obviously inserted and then it gets sucked in by rollers as you see here.

This is the New page.

So that's the old plate. It's just popped out now. You see the new plate can be done. Pretty cool. This noise is actually the machine. It's the Japanese maintenance cord.

Here are all the computers that. Not the computers, the electric devices, but there are computers also.

There is a transformer. Is this open to cool it down?

Yeah, cool it down, yeah.

How much power is the thing that it's using?

Oh, it's over 100 kilowatts.

100 kilowatts.

See the cables here?

Yeah, that's the cable door over to the transformer here. And they've got the back door open here for that area. So look, if you're watching this, you guys gonna have to plant a lot of trees to offset this. That's your job. Read the book. Plant trees. So, Victor, thank you so much for showing us around and for printing our book.

The big question on everyone's lips is going to be when they can get the book. So I've told them, you told me.

Just before Christmas, hopefully.

But Christmas deliveries often go crazy, especially.

In Sweden, where the postal service is a bit different.

But this is going to be a whole lorry load of books.

But you're hoping just right there before.

Christmas or very early in the new year. And so I've got. I've booked my holiday after the 11th of Jan, so I hopefully will be able to get them out to people.

Could you share the story about the idea behind this business, about the foundation and why the foundation created this printing company?

Well, the main business, main purpose of the foundation is the health promotion. So we are involved in promoting health in the various ways. And the big part of those ways is printing books, magazines related to health. And of course we do some commercial work also to keep the machines busy. But the main objective of the institution as it is, it is health promotion. We do it by publishing books, we do it by websites. We have several websites that we promote health there. And we are operating several health clubs in the nearby locations where people meet every month and share different things about health, support themselves, encourage themselves and present new idea, do cooking classes and so on. We also do a newstart program which is done in rented place where we go with group of 20 people, let's say, and we spend there with. We spend with them seven to 10 days and teach them how to change their lifestyle, how to do the best choices. So you preserve your health, you improve your health. And there are coming people who have different health problems already and we help them to overcome them. And this is another part of the health promotion. We also do lecture. We go to places where people are inviting us, we do lectures, small events. We have also introduced into Poland program called Health Expo, which is done in the public like during the special days for the city or in the shopping centers sometimes where we go with the group of 20 volunteers and so on. And we have different booths presenting different health principles. And we take people and they go from booth to booth and learn new principles. Each booth have some little attractions. People can perform some exercises, can drink some water, can measure their.

So this is kind of social enterprise when you. Is it true for you that you earn money here and you can create like opportunities for people in health and discovery?

We earn money on printing and then we can do all those other things. We have some people, you know, living here, but.

So Victor was telling us that when they actually set the foundation up 25 years ago, they were going to build a retreat here for people to come to learn about cooking and eating and healthy living. Picking up on the theme of Croatia recently, it's not so common for people here, but basically once they bought the printing machine, they got.

They got so busy with the printing.

They'Ve started building houses that the workers can live in here.

But they've been so busy printing that.

They haven't finished that either. But that's what happens.

This is our heating place.

This is a heating system. So these guys heat their facility using. Is it coppice wood from your forest?

Not always from our forest. We buy.

You buy some.

There is some from our forest.

Humanito forest as well.

But we, you know, we don't want to cut down the whole forest. But we only cut what is rotten.

And what is clear. Yeah.

If it's too close to each other.

So we.

We buy wood and then that goes in here.

Okay.

So that's the tank with the.

Water, we heat this tank. And after we heat this tank.

The.

What's the name of after? After we heat this tank, the stove is shut down and this tank is heating the buildings. So there are pumps that pump the heat.

What's this, like 30 cubic meters or something?

It's 22 cubic meters.

22. And so this water is circulating through and I bet that's got very nice insulation. So how big is the boiler?

That's.

That's heating that. Cuz that's a huge old tank. That's the boiler. Look, here's long length wood to go in.

So how Many times per 24 hours it heats up?

Depends on temperature outside. If it's Temperature like this. We started it two days ago and right now, pretty soon we will have to start it again.

Whoa.

It's ready to go.

It's ready to go. That's a bonfire. So how long would that burn?

It will burn in five hours.

Five hours.

It will heat up this tank to 90 degrees.

Ah. And then. But you wouldn't.

And then it will shut down.

And how.

How often tall you would need to light it again?

Depends on the temperature outside. But when the winter starts, we usually start this every three days.

Every three days. Okay. So that gives a good sense of it.

When. When There is a minus 20 degrees outside and the wind then every day. Every day.

Is this a common system in Poland?

No, no, it's not common.

Is it custom built or.

It's not custom built. There is a company that in Poland that builds this.

Yeah.

And it's a very good system, you know, because it's a.

It.

It works on.

Wood gas.

So it's a very efficient.

The air is pressed in the bottom and it burns from the bottom up. Not like usually from top down. Bottom burns from the bottom up.

It's a very clean burn.

Very clean burn. When it's working full power, you don't see anything from the channel, from the chimney.

Nothing.

Awesome.

What a lot of that's. You know, I powered the home with a wood stove over half my life. But that's a serious stove. I've never seen so much wood piled in.

You can stand inside.

Yeah. Amazing. So do you know how many kilowatts the stove is it?

This is 300 kilowatts.

300 kilowatts.

We don't need this much. You know, if the stove would work all the time, we would probably need maybe 100.

But it lets you only light it every three days.

If it's.

Yeah, this is reloaded this. We loaded this yesterday evening and now we wait for the time to start it. When the temperature in this accumulator will go down. Then we will start this.

Actually we can.

We can start it even right now because my view blading can work wait couple more hours because this temperature is still there.

Peter was just saying this is actually designed around round straw bales. That's what people. Other people that are using it use. But they don't have straw, they have wood. So they're using it like that.

One match.

You light this paper, light this paper, white paper inside and the fire goes inside. There are small pieces of wood like wood chips like this.

So that's starting to.

This paper starts this and from this there are a little bit bigger like this or, or we use what we use. We use this like this from the old pallets, like this and this starts this and from this the bigger things like this.

It's very cool to see. So this is yeah, central Heaton for not just the printing factory but also all the buildings that were on the outside and the new buildings that are getting built. So it's a lot of capacity.

That was pretty cool.

So I hope you found that interesting. I found it really interesting and really nice to do business with a company that puts back its substances into what they find beneficial socially. That's business.

Well, the camera ran out the last minute so I'm glad we got to get around the tour and thanks so much Victor for having us and thanks to Baba for taking me around and yeah, hope you enjoyed that. Folks, I'm super excited to get the book out to you. It's going to be 18 tons of books arriving in a few weeks time and I'll be busy shipping them out to you just as fast as I can can and I will catch you in a video soon. Bye for now.