University of Illinois Chicago
OP-14: Office Paper Purchasing

http://www.obfs.uillinois.edu/bfpp/section-7-purchasing/section-7-2/
Print Services

The "State Agency Printing" section (30 ILCS 500/20-105) of the Illinois Procurement Code states that all books, pamphlets, documents, and reports published by a State agency must contain the following information:

"Printed by the Authority of the State of Illinois."
Date of each publication.
Number of copies printed.
Printing order number.

Public universities are exempt from the above requirements if any of the following conditions are met:

The printing service is not paid for with State funds.
The printing service is fulfilled using "on-campus" printing services.
The printing service is performed on behalf of another state governmental body.

Departments are responsible for determining if printing requests fall under one of the exemptions listed above. If a printing request does not meet one of the exemptions, department must ensure the printed material contains the information required by the Illinois Procurement Code as listed above. Additional requirements and considerations that pertain to any printing done by the University are as follows: The "Soybean-oil based ink" section (30 ILCS 500/45-15) of the Illinois Procurement Code mandates that the procurement of printing services must specify the use of soybean oil-based ink. The Chief Procurement Office for Higher Education may waive this requirement if he or she determines that another type of ink is required to assure high quality and reasonable pricing of the printed product. This requirement applies to both on and off-campus printing services.

If off-campus, a signed vendor certification letter, which certifies the vendor is in compliance with the "Prevailing Wage Requirements" section (30 ILCS 500/25-60) of the Illinois Procurement Code, must be obtained. Printing trade customs allow for plus or minus 10% in over/under runs. The University has standards for certain stationery materials including items with logos, items with the University Seal, and business cards. If using off-campus sources for printing these materials, departments must obtain written confirmation from the appropriate campus or University Administration office to ensure that the proposed materials conform to those standards prior to making the purchase.

Departments must purchase stationery and other printed products with recycled material content whenever cost, specifications, standards, and availability are comparable to products without recycled content.

At UIC, departments are encouraged to use paper with at least 10% post consumer content. For additional information, contact the Office of Publications.

UIC follows the statutes for procurement of recycled materials under the Illinois Procurement Code as follows:

a. Recycled Materials (30 ILCS 500/45-20)
When a public contract is to be awarded to the lowest responsible bidder, an otherwise qualified bidder who will fulfill the contract through the use of products made of recycled materials may, on a pilot basis or in accordance with a pilot study, be given preference over other bidders unable to do so, provided that the cost included in the bid of the products made of recycled materials is not more than 10% greater than the cost of products not made of recycled materials (Source: P.A. 90-572, eff. date See Sec 99-5.)

b. Recyclable paper (30 ILCS 500/45-25)
All paper purchased for use by State agencies must be recyclable paper unless recyclable paper cannot be used to meet the requirements of the State agencies. State agencies shall determine their paper requirements to allow the use of recyclable paper whenever possible, including without limitation using plain paper rather than colored paper that is not recyclable. (Source: P.A. 90-572, eff. date – See Sec. 99-5)

At UIC, there is no centralized database of purchases of products with recycled content. In fact there is no central database of purchases in general. However, we have a central purchasing system called I-Buy where most purchases are made and there is preferred vendor pricing. This data was obtained from Office Max data that comes in through I-Buy and represents an increasingly larger portion of total office supply purchases.