Im currently working on a new label, Its a long story, But we will be using organic cotton, or sustained, (prob AA) but to add value and give us a real head start I really wanted to use Environmentally friendly printing.
Does anyone know how this could be done? Im guessing some kind of water base screen printing.
No chemicals, waterbased inks, and virtually no waste.
Not to mention, virtually nothing to clean up at the end of the day and nothing going down the drain.
But there are some waterbased screenprinters out there.
If you're looking for the most eco friendly, I would go to thier shop and see how things are done. See how much waste is there at the end of the day. See how they deal with left over ink, etc. Dont forget about packaging, shipping and things like that too, if you are really trying to boast that in your line.
That would be what I recommend. Even the closed cartridge printers have recyclable cartridges so just a minuscule amount of waste ends up in the garbage. Not even enough to fill a garbage bag in a year, even with heavy use.
I forget their name, but there is a screen printing company in the US that prints with 100% organic ink. You can probably find them through Google if nobody esle here remembers the company name.
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I actually emailed my contact to see if they have done any studies on exactly what is in the ink vapor. It would be interesting to find out.
I think it is sort of irresponsible to try and compare digital inks to cigarette smoke.
Also California is full of nutjobs. There is a campaign there to ban fireplaces...yet they don't burn the underbrush and the refusal to do controlled burns is what caused so much death and destruction there. So if they think something causes cancer, I don't exactly say..."Holy smokes, let me stop doing that, or I'll get cancer."
A few good points:
The funny thing about life...NOBODY MAKES IT OUT ALIVE.
Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying Of nothing.
Yeah, DTG inks aren't the best thing out there, but screen printing has a lot more of them. So in the grand aspect, DTG is safer for us and the environment. The vapors that come strictly from heating a shirt to cure ANY ink releases chemicals in the water vapor from moisture trapped in the shirt.
You could also look into Rehance - look at tsdesigns | printing t-shirts for good. Sounds/looks like great ecofriendly company, just too expensive for little companies like mine.
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there is an australian company Permaset that makes eco friendly water based ink its called Aqua, I use it and it is fantastic but expensive, its really up to you if you want eco friendly be ready to spend at least twice as much on ink as you would on a PVC based plastisol. I spend about three times more on ink than I would if I didnt care about my local environment. For that reason I dont think you are gonna find a profesional screen printer that uses it though. hope this helps.
With chemicals, "less" does not equal "safer". The magic of DTG is cross polymerization. The pre-treatment combined with the ink under temperature causes a chemical reaction which binds the image to the shirt. To make this happen a small amount of formaldehyde is required. Formaldehyde is listed as a carcinogen in California as is Ethyl acrylate.
Is the formaldehyde in the pretreatment?
Are there still issues if you are using no white ink and no pretreatment?
Really? The why is the MSDS of DTG ink show a higher level of risk? If you wish to start playing the game of DTG being safe, in my prior post i listed a link to the A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Generally, the term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. Click here for answers to common patent questions.
", "style=\"border: 1pt solid #000000;background: #FFFFCC;padding: 3px;font-size: 10px;overflow: auto;\"");" class="gal">patent of DTG printing. Which chemicals on the list is safe? methylol acrylamide? methylol methacrylamide? methyl acrylamidoglycolate methyl ether? acrylamidoglycolic acid? formamide? DTG is a chemical cocktail.
Well, I am looking at the MSDS for the each of the Brother inks and guess what...no formaldehyde or any of those other compounds you have listed. It depends on the manufacturer.
I won't disagree that compounds get more toxic as you heat them and they vaporize, or at least it is easier to inhale them that way, but do you really think that the paint thinner/press cleaner or whatever you use isn't horrible. That atomizes when sprayed through a squirt bottle or spray can.
As far as chemical cocktails go, you have to realize that cotton is the most chemically treated plant on earth. I would bet my @ss that there is worse stuff in the dyes than the ink.
Thanks SketchBox (and everyone else)! I was about to lose hope... Does Aqua offer waterbased? Do you have their website? Thanks again!!!
I did email Rehance about their ink and got this response this morning:
Karolina, we do not sell our inks since REHANCE, it is a process of print then garment dye. Our process allows us to have prints on darker colors shirts, but we start out on white or natural then garment dye.
Not quite sure what he means... Thanks and have a great day!
Eco friendly screen printing 
