Untruths Pertaining To Environmentally Friendly T-Shirt Printing.
Now days it is very apparent that almost every sector of the economy has jumped on the going Green environmentally friendly bandwagon and the screen printing and custom embroidery industry is no exception.
Normally, this simply means that they are going to use a water-based ink instead of a traditional plastic Ink.
I have been in the T-shirt industry for well over 15 years, so let me put this in perspective into what this really equates to.
The ink that is used when printing your tee shirt equates to a very small percentage of the finished products impact on our environment.
(I find it not only Laughable but quite ridiculous)
It is my opinion, that the real environmental impact doesn’t stem from the ink that is used at all but the chemicals that are used when cleaning out and reclaiming the screen for the next job in line.
The T-shirt printing industry has made great strides towards trying to implement citrus-based solvents that are biodegradable.
These naturally based cleaners are not only easier on the landscape but also much healthier for the person who was actually directly exposed to the production process.
The problem is not every shop uses them because it is usually more expensive to obtain this chemistry.
So guess who the additional overhead gets passed down to ?
You got it,
The end-user.
Ironically, it is the same tree lover who is making all the noise about going green, that is whining about having to pay a little bit more for his T-shirt.
Think about it?
The person doing the reclaiming process is required to wear protective gloves eye protection aprons and even sometimes a respirator in order to keep themselves from coming in contact with these harmful agents.
The overwhelming majority does not use proper water management systems and the waste water combined with all those chemicals goes right down the drain and into our environment.
So when you compare the almost insignificant amount of ink that is used in the screen printing process and compare it to the overall environmental impact of all the contaminants from the reclaim process going down the drain it into our store system and the potential of ultimately, ending up in our tap Water,it really puts things in it’s proper perspective.
We can certainly agree that water is a a natural substance and plastic is not, but it is comparable to a super oil tanker spilling its entire load into the Gulf of Mexico and someone wiping off the dipstick of their car after checking the oil and not wanting to throw it into the trash can.
And that is the way I see it .
Mike at T-shirt printing Columbus Ohio Your custom screen printing and custom embroidery experts.