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Originally Posted by Ross B |  | | | | | | | | | There seems to be some momentum gathering in sales of organic T-shirts and apparel generally. It has occurred to me that screen printing using nasty conventional dyes (plastisol, I think?) rather defeats the purpose of using organic blanks!
There are herbal and other dyes around that are people and environment friendly and some companies are using them to dye organic T-shirts blanks - apparently effectively - so I'm wondering if any of the screenprinters out there know of an eco/people-friendly screenprinting dye that could be used, or is being used? It must be possible, surely.
Or perhaps that rubbery stretch quality is only currently possible with plastisol dyes? | |  | |  | |
This is a controversial subject because we don't usually discuss science and facts and impact on society. I am eager to hear about trends in new materials and methods. That curiosity is what's made me who I am.
Sales
Shirt sales have very little to do with the actual process of printing.
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There seems to be some momentum gathering in ..." is about sales and yes, sales is way more important to a business, rather than a hobby or research and development or printing.
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There seems to be some momentum gathering in" popular music, fashion, every move some celebrities make, game and reality based TV shows. People are making fortunes pandering to what is popular and that's good. I'm glad I live in the USA.
What's going to sell is a very important focus for your business. Without sales you have no business.
If you like, (or don't like) but can sell the rubbery, armor feel popular with athletic uniforms, you design with heavy deposit plastisols and cure it for a long time.
I prowled some stores in a mall in North Carolina last week and by my study, the world is crazy for foil skulls.
If you like organic food, bio fuel, organic clothing AND A SOFT HAND, you can do that with advanced screen printing skills like - high mesh count, high tension screens and soft hand plastisol.
Plastisol, or water-based, oil based, oil phase, water phase inks. Any ink. Your real enemy is that you think plastisol is bad and water based is good. Or that any ink is bad. Everybody knows that drinking and driving is bad. Everybody for the last 30 years knows that smoking is bad. I don't know of any textile chemicals from commercial companies that are harm to any innocent person like asbestos or DDT.
If you're scared of the ink we use, use it safely. Handled safely, almost anything can be safe. When I got back from Texas after the Printwear show I paid a man to inject me with drugs and then he put a pliers in my mouth and pulled out one of my wisdom teeth.
I have to pay for my ink I don't want ANY ink to go down the drain because it costs money. It used to be that morons that screeched their tires were using Mom's card and didn't pay for tires. Now there's a whole lifestyle based on drifting and burning up tires.
I have participated in several threads on this site about the benefits of WB or plastisol inks to the environment, (please search for water base). Cured, they have almost the same eco-impact except for the fumes released by ANY evaporative ink that will be more than 50% of the ink. Water is just the
vehicle. Most poisons are water based. You have no control of what goes into the water based ink you buy, and no knowledge of what is released into the environment.
A gallon of WB ink yields less than a gallon
on the shirt. In many ways that is OK, because when you make it yourself, it is very inexpensive. I love water based ink and have printed drums and drums of it. I don't like the chemicals that evaporate into the air and the fact that it dries in the screen. I have loved several women in my life, but that doesn't mean I don't want to strangle them sometimes.
Plastisol is 100% solids. It cures and fuses on the shirt without any evaporation. It is the international standard for high opacity on dark colors. It has many rules about disposal although many people wash up with ink degradents and send it down the drain. You have no control of what goes into the plastisol ink you buy, but you know that 100% of it is fused and trapped on the shirt and their is no release into the environment.
Mom and every chef alive has a distinct method of cooking. They could be good eco-citizens in the kitchen
or not. If you love hamburger - If you eat meat, you know the 22% fat burger you get a t Paul Newman's restaurant in Connecticut is amazing. If you worship the cow as the Hindi's do, I've committed a mortal sin - or worse a crime. George Sanders is famous for regularly ordering pork sausages in Israel.
You as a designer or producer need to say what you want, and every chef you meet will try and please you. If you don't like what you get, you date somebody else.
If you can sell 'herbal dyes' and corner the market - great. If you are making millions and you find that 'tiny crippled Chinese slave children' die every year grinding up the herbs, you get to decide if you want to make change in your products.
Unskilled printers that under cure ink, make bad separations and pour things down the drain where they don't belong are like that insane person that you were so hot for 3 weeks ago. You recognize the traits they had and you avoid people like that no matter how excited you got.
Nasty? UV ink that is on every CD you own might not be cured completely. Any uncured monomers that enter your body stay that way for the rest of your life.
Nasty. Solvent based vinyl or epoxy inks. Ask the person printing that stuff every day.
Nasty. I did 2 days of consulting work in a tannery once. Perhaps the 2 worst days of my life. I never liked the bakery I worked in after school because I always burned my arms.
I don't accept the entire premise that organic is somehow, by definition, safe or better. There's lots of fear mongering. It reminds me of the arguments we had about bio-degradable. Even plutonium is bio degradable, it just take 500 years or so.
Let's be more specific about the benefits and I want to continue any discussions to bring facts to light. Let's discuss what you are worried about.
Most people on these forums are just afraid to make a mistake or experiment. That's what school, libraries and these forums are for.
Oh. I'm coming out with a new organic process ink and fiber made from all natural crystal structures that are found free in nature called arsenic. The stuff is amazing.
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At trade shows and seminars, I always check out the shoes of eco-friendly people with questions. Most of the time they are wearing leather, brand name athletic shoes made in ..........
Any eco-friendly screenprinting alternative? 
