Walk down to the working floor of almost any conventional screen-printer and almost immediately it will hit you: the toxic smell of plastisol inks, their additives, and cleaning solvents. If you had done so in our shop two years ago, you would have smelled the same.

It makes sense. Plastisol inks are inexpensive, easy to work with and provide dynamic color output, while their water-based equivalents have proven to be a more finicky lot.

Most screen printers have had to accept the environmental burdens the process creates as just one of the side effects inherent to their business. We felt otherwise.

In theory, removing the plastisol inks (liquid PVC) was a no brainer. What’s commonly described as the most environmentally damaging plastic, had no business populating the apparel that we produced, much less our work environment we occupied every day. The only problem is that for many years, water-based inks have underperformed. While softer to the touch, water-based inks generally could not provide the color opacity needed for ever day printing.

That’s why we were ecstatic to find Permaset Aqua from Permaset – the leading brand of fabric printing ink in Australia for the last 40 years. Permaset Aqua is a 100% solvent free, water-based ink that due to constant development and engineering of ink pigment size, creates a super soft handle, while maintaining outstanding strength and adhesion. Through it’s persistent development, Permaset Aqua has also been able to achieve unsurpassed color yield.

When we discovered we could offer a superior product to our customer, while simultaneously reducing our environmental and health impact, we didn’t sit around to take a vote. The change was immediate. We’re proud to say we print solely on water based inks, and continually strive to improve our environmental performance.

If you have any thoughts, comments, questions, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to write or call @ 877.ECO.2052