Our Green Ink Choice: International Coatings Company’s GEN IV is PVC, Phthalate, Pesticide Free
Posted by Shea Gunther - 31/08/08 at 08:08:12 pm
Conventional plastisol ink can be some pretty nasty stuff, with PVC, heavy metals, Phthalates, all sorts of organo-baddies, and even pesticides floating around.
I was concerned for my own health because one of the steps of the Tshirt making process involves flashing the shirt under a heated dryer to cure the ink. I’m not keen on spending hours in the shop breathing in vaporized PVC and Phthalates, but more than that I didn’t like the idea of putting out (hopefully) thousands of shirts made using toxic chemicals.
We’re trying to take this thing as green as we can get with Meatspace Tees and our choice of ink is a big part of that commitment. Luckily the ink manufacturers have been paying attention (and no doubt prodded by some tough European safety standards) and are coming out with PVC and crew free choices.
We’re starting off with International Coatings Company’s GEN IV Series. It’s free of PVCs, Phthlates, heavy metals, pesticides and it cleans up with water. Regular plastisol requires a pretty nasty petroleum based solvent to clean up. The GEN IV Series handles like a regular plastisol ink to some degree, it’s not quite as forgiving for being left out over night and can dry in the screen, though ICC says a few good print strokes will easily clear it. It will soon come with a Pantone color matching system using 11 colors out of the initial 18 available.
You can read all about the new GEN IV ink at the International Coatings Company. We buy our GEN IV ink from the good folks at Atlas Screen Supply Company.
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