Paul Stephenson is not normally a man to pipe up about green issues, but here he takes a break from his recycling to talk about eco-friendly inks<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a bloke, and as such when it comes to taking out the recycling I\u2019m unable to make several sensible journeys. Firstly I collect all the tins and cereal boxes, and build an eight-foot structure that resembles the Manhattan skyline. Then, after some preparatory blowing I attempt what I believe in weightlifting circles is called the clean and jerk. Propelling myself at speed and
\nfuelled by foul language I then career towards the bins. There can be only one outcome, and within seconds I\u2019m wearing a pair of cornflake box slip-ons and fully drizzled in tuna oil. Marvellous \u2014 another day smelling like I\u2019ve spent the night in Captain Birdseye\u2019s bunk. And so it\u2019ll come as no surprise to you to hear that although well intentioned, I\u2019m not the world\u2019s most successful eco warrior. To such an extent that I swore that the only article on green issues I would ever write would be the boys book of bogey flicking\u2026 and yet here I am, about to join Gordon Ramsay in discussing carbon footprints, (although unlike Rammers, I don\u2019t have a restaurant at Heathrow).<\/p>\n
Nowadays you\u2019re supposed to know all about your biodegradables, your biomass and bio fuels: the carbon offset, the carbon tax, and as for carbon trading well that\u2019s all pretty damn straightforward. Then all we need to do is have a quick look at our micro generation and our sustainable development, and it\u2019s home in time for a bag of mung beans and a glass of goat wee. I\u2019ve got energy saving light bulbs dangling from the ceiling like sci-fi haemorrhoids; I\u2019ve sold the guzzler and travel to work by donkey: and all my printers are in a home made bum sling, piped up to a methane converter that runs two autos and a dryer\u2026 my work is done\u2026 well, not quite, and there\u2019s a reason \u2014 I\u2019m still trying to get my head around the idea of eco friendly inks, and before I go on, I ain\u2019t no chemist but\u2026..<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve purchased your planet saving T-shirt \u2014 a subject I shall leave to the learned Professor Charles of the Continental University \u2014 and then you arrive at your printer full of good intentions: You want water-based ink. And why wouldn\u2019t you, anything with water in the title has got to be good right? In some ways yes, but has a printer ever told you that to cure water based inks we run our dryers at less than half the speed, I guess using double the gas? Does that mean our carbon footprint has increased? I presume it does.<\/p>\n
And while we\u2019re in our cloud of noxious waterbased vapour at the Joker\u2019s lair, I\u2019d better confess that no matter how good we think we are, when we use water-based inks we spend more time colour matching, have more screens break down and generally faff about like grannies in a factory outlet. It can take us up to twice as long to run a job\u2026 and so we use more gas\u2026 and the sun sets over another melting igloo.<\/p>\n
And when we\u2019re not sloshing about in the water-based we\u2019re whipping up a discharge cocktail for all your lovely dark garments. It really is brilliant stuff \u2014 when you print it you can\u2019t see anything and then at temperature in the dryer, abracadabra, the reactive dye is removed leaving a bright and texture free print\u2026 rub it on your face and go mmmmmmm \u2014 after you\u2019ve waited a few minutes for the formaldehyde to evaporate of course. Ah good old formaldehyde, fairly harmless and great for embalming bodies, but it\u2019s a skin irritant so printers beware.<\/p>\n
And when our ink maestros have finished with the above, they pour the waste inks into airtight containers and rocket them into outer space where they can do no harm. Under no circumstances are water-based inks washed onto the water table \u2014 if you had a blue cup of tea this morning, don\u2019t blame your local T-shirt printer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul Stephenson is not normally a man to pipe up about green issues, but here he takes a break from his recycling to talk about eco-friendly inks I\u2019m a bloke, and as such when it comes to taking out the recycling I\u2019m unable to make several sensible journeys. Firstly I collect all the tins and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-misc"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n