Ethical Fashion

Rapanui is an Eco-Fashion company from the Isle of Wight, that makes Organic, Ethical clothing using Renewable Energy with award-winning traceability. Rapanui is about making eco-fashion cool.

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Ethical Fashion

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The Trouble with cotton

Eco-Friendly Screen Printing

The vast majority of our products are organic, or made from natural fibres – but how about the printed and embroidered designs? The impact of screen printing is an important consideration for ethical fashion companies.

eco friendly screen printing

There are a number of ways to print a t-shirt, but the two mediums that are most commonly used are solvent-based inks and water-based inks. Water-based inks sound better, and many companies drop 'water-based inks' in their eco marketing chat. The reality is actually very different.

How Screen Printing Works

To print a t-shirt, you must cut out a shape in a flat surface and then push the ink through this 'screen' into the open stencil, creating a pattern. You do the cutting with a very bright light and some fancy software. The print is then baked onto the t-shirt in a heater to dry the design and fasten it.
• The main impact of screen printing is the chemicals in the ink (its creation, use and waste) and the energy and emissions from drying the print.

Choosing Inks: Solvent or Water-based?

As a chemical, water-based inks are theoretically better for the environment. They contain less oil-based chemicals and are less harmful for biology. However, water based inks are watery, so once they are out of the tin they must be washed off the screen and into a drainage sink. A few printers may claim to have closed loop recovery methods for this but the reality is that some drainage is often unavoidable. With water based inks, there is more waste.

Solvent-based inks can contain very nasty Volatile Organic Compounds and endocrine disruptors (phthalates) that are very harmful if released to the environment in their ‘wet’ form: so we only use 100% Phthalate free screen printing ink. Another benefit of these plastisol type inks is that they can be scooped back up into the pot and re-used time and time again, with almost no waste. So a decent printer will not allow them to enter the watercourse as it is far easier and cheaper to reclaim unused inks from the screen.

*EDMAR Endocrine Disruptors in the Marine Environment (2002)

Drying can be Energy Intensive

Whilst talk often focuses on inks and chemicals, a significant impact comes from the energy intensive baking oven which dries the print. T-shirts are laid out on a conveyor belt and baked in a (usually gas-fired) oven much like an oven grill. Whilst solvent-based prints sound worse than water-based inks, they actually take only one-fifth of the time to bake, using one fifth of the gas and one-fifth of the carbon. Our printing takes place in the UK, which has improved our quality and reduced transport emissions too.

So which is better, Plastisol or Water-Based?

Unfortunately we think it would be difficult to call any kind of commercial screen printing eco-friendly at the moment. Still, there are ways to greatly reduce environmental impact. We have chosen to work with a printer that reduces waste ink, reduces energy and only ever uses Phthalate Free inks (Phthalates are harmful Endocrine Disruptor, or “gender-bender” chemicals that are exceptionally harmful to marine life and eco systems) – all this saves us money which we can pass on to our customers. Generally most of our prints are plastisol inks, chosen for their vibrancy, long lasting print, low energy needs for drying, lower waste and longer life.

But most importantly, when we do use plastisol based inks, we guarantee that all of our prints are created from specially made Phthalate Free colours – which makes for a healthier environment for fish and other organisms in our watercourses and food chain. In our opinion, Phthalates Free plastisol screen printing is the most responsible way to print our garments at the moment.

Some companies would call our approach eco-friendly; we just call it doing the right thing.

Update: Due to demand, we've made our screen printed, award-winning clothing open to other brands, businesses and events: contact us if you would like to get clothing made for your brand, business or event by Rapanui.