I’ve chosen my ink…if my puppy chews my T-shirt, will it die?

For many, this is sadly not a consideration at all…if Scruffles  gnoshes on your favourite T, grows three goolies and starts walking backwards, who cares, it’s fashion baby, and there will be a few casualties on the way. But for others, in rope sandals and hessian undercrackers, convinced that eating anything other than fallen fruit is murder, it’s a big deal. And so it should be. We may be unsure of exactly which part of the Dagobah system our ink comes from, but we should do our best to find out and offer our customers an informed choice. What follows are a collection of probably half baked truths from the Joker’s chemical lair, but it’s what I’ve picked up over twenty five years of conversations I partly understood. For that reason, we have always tried our best to get it right, without jumping on the green bandwagon…there are those who do, and frankly I’m suspicious of the possibly blow dried villain, selling you a car that won’t break down, because its engine is ‘based on the helical friction principal’, or some other baffling chit chat that you can’t really check up on. As we proceed however, if you are a chemist and think I’m wrong, feel free to enlighten me, just try not to bend me double and take me over the periodic table.

Solvent based inks, also called plastisols…are they the Devil’s breakfast? There are those who have wondered for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Phthalates — these are not a war like inter galactic enemy of James T Kirk, nor a fitness routine designed to locate your pelvic floor, but a plastic softener put into ink to make it more stretchy and printable. A chemist once told me there are six phthalates, three of which are banned, and of the three that remain allowed, one is present in some solvent based inks. So why is that scary? Legend has it that Marks and Spencer once ran a test on these, and there was a suggestion that if a kid chews on a print for long enough, it can have an effect on the growth of their reproductive system. I guess because of its association with children, this had everyone filling the latrines with chocolate fudge, could plastic softeners have this effect? While we wondered, little Johnny was in the corner chewing on a plastic toy from Phthalates R Us, and Dad was off to work with his sandwiches wrapped in cling film, how soft a plastic is that? It all came to nothing, as these things often do, and I haven’t been asked for a phthalate free ink for many years, but it’s always one to keep our eye on.

The other question with solvent based inks is, how easy are they to dispose of? I have been asked at times if it’s true that when incinerated they give off hydrochloric acid. Now any acid is potentially very bad, as I said to a green elephant on the bus last night, but I think our answer to this is, we never incinerate plastisols inks…they pretty much last forever, so we just keep them and use them all up in the end, which hopefully solves that one.

Water based inks and discharge…lovely with nuts, a refreshing summer cocktail? There are those who like the sound of these, predominantly because they have water in the title…fresh from the mountain stream, a squirt of mango to add a little colour, and the whole damn world is safe, right? Well I’ll stick to PG Tips if it’s all the same with you, because the word to look out for here, I’m told, is formaldehyde…isn’t that what they use to embalm bodies, a preservative? I expect so, and that explains why all we printers are so chiselled, youthful, and unable to speak. It isn’t good; you don’t want any on your cornflakes, but are you at risk? Not as far as I’m aware, the danger if there is any is to your friendly printer, and hence we use the more expensive low formaldehyde inks, to make sure we don’t start glowing like we’ve just had a lovely two weeks in Chernobyl.

It is also worth considering if you are an Econaut, that although water based inks sound nice, we put them through a big gas gulping textile dryer at half the speed of solvent based inks…the carbon footprint of a mouse, turns into that of a gorilla…

So, what do you choose when trying to do a nice print, while keeping the penguins in a fully furnished igloo? Water or solvent based? Only my opinion, but it’s six and two threes, swings and roundabouts, six of one and half a dozen of the other, which brings me back to informing the customer as best we can so they can make a difficult but educated choice, and as always, choosing the nicest ink to fit the graphic…As a Libran, I hope that’s a balanced view.

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