We are interested in doing our part to preserve this beautiful planet. Part of that means being sure whether we are contributing to green washing (supporting green hype that's not grounded in facts). While we offer water-based ink, we take the position that it is less eco-friendly than plastisol.
Water-based ink
We can use discharge and water-based inks for you, the cost is just a little higher. The industry calls water-based ink eco-friendly, but I think they are not, really. This is why:
- Water-based ink still has an MSDS, it's still poison that can’t be poured down the drain safely/legally.
- Discharge is more noxious to work with than plastisol, so it’s not as friendly to the workers.
- The colors fade faster in the wash. Arguably, this makes the life the garment shorter. If you figure it lasts only ¾ as long, that means that for every 3 plastisol shirts you make, you’ll make 4 water-based shirts.
- The mass of the final product is about 95% shirt, 5% decoration. (realistically, especially if there’s no underbase, this is more like 99.5% vs 0.5%) Considering the shirt-longevity issue from #3, you’re creating more landfill waste with water-based ink than with plastisol.
- Water-based inks have an incredibly short shelf life, so we end up throwing them out with some regularity. Plastisol lives for years, even unsealed, so we waste almost none of it.
There are some soy inks on the market, but at this point they don’t actually work on garments. We are hopeful that someone will develop an ink that will last on garments and actually be more eco-friendly than plastisol, but it's not on the market yet.
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