Like any industrial process, textile printing requires raw materials, consumes energy and produces waste. Nonetheless, there is considerable scope for reducing the impact of the process and helping ensure it is carried out in a more responsible and sustainable way.
In general, you can group our activities to reduce the impact of the printing process into five distinct categories: more sustainable consumables like screens; greater process efficiency; longer equipment lifespan; adherence to strict legislation; and fundamental R&D into sustainability-related issues. We'll take a look at each of these in turn.
Cleaner Consumables
As a leading global supplier of rotary printing screens, any advances we make in the production and use of our screens can have a significant impact because of their widespread use. There are three main areas in which our screens differentiate themselves.
First of all, the lacquer used to coat our screens is chrome-free, so there's no contamination possible from this potentially hazardous material. Secondly, the holes in our NovaScreens, which, like our other screens, are made out of nickel because of its hardness, are also of a special shape and size, so there's less mechanical force required to push the printing paste through on to the substrate. A major advantage of this unique feature is that considerably less nickel is deposited on the textile being printed, because there is less wear and tear. The screens also last longer as a result.
In addition, we have installed sophisticated wastewater treatment systems in our screenproduction facilities throughout the world. In this way, regardless of whether our screens are manufactured in countries such as the Netherlands, China, India, Brazil or the US, the water required during the process is carefully collected, purified and then used again.
More Efficient Printing Processes
We have taken a number of measures in the design of both our conventional and digital printing machines to ensure reduced usage of energy, water and paste or ink.
Energy: an average printing line has a nominal power rating of approximately 75 kW, most of which is required for the drying process. A relatively high temperature has to be maintained inside the drying chamber, and the various vapours emitted as the textile dries have to be extracted. Our drying systems use a radial extraction technique, which removes moisture while leaving more warmth in the chamber. This uses approximately 25% less energy, and also means customers can produce more quickly because the process is faster.
Water: the pumps and the printing blankets in our systems are rinsed with recycled water. In this way, water use is reduced by 65%, being typically only 1.5 cubic metres per hour (at 50% efficiency), compared to the four or five cubic metres per hour that certain other machines consume.
Paste: when you finish a printing run, there are still approximately six litres of printing paste in the system, predominantly in the tubes that run between the paste reservoirs and the screens. With most non-Stork Prints systems, this paste is simply rinsed out and flushed down the drain. But not with ours. We make sure that around 80% of the printing paste is fed back into the reservoir.
Urea-Free Printing
Reactive printing techniques are often used during the production of fashion textiles to obtain more vivid colours. This necessitates the use of urea for pretreating the fabric and in the printing paste. Urea produces carbon dioxide during the steaming process, and also has to be washed out of the fabric.
With our Eco Foam Unit there is no need for urea. Instead, special foam is used to impregnate the fabric. This process maintains – and in some cases even improves – the fabriccolour characteristics, produces less CO2 and requires a minimum amount of water. As the fabric doesn't get so wet, the drying time (and amount of energy required) is reduced by approximately half. Even the time required for steaming is 30-40% shorter, which also results in energy savings.
Using Water instead of Chemicals
To give another example, very aggressive acids are used to move the lacquer from screens after use, particularly in the Far East. This isn't good for the environment, nor is it good for workers exposed to these chemicals. Our processes, in comparison, use high-pressure water.
Substantial Savings through Digital Engraving
There are also several sustainability-related advantages of direct-laser (digital) engraving, a field in which we are world leader. The turnaround time for screens is much shorter, typically only 15 minutes with our bestLEN, which means less energy is required. It also saves water; when using traditional 'wet' processes like digital wax or ink, screens have to be developed immediately after exposure, which requires approximately 250L of water per screen. This is no longer necessary with our direct-laser engraving.
Longer Equipment Lifespan
One of the most crucial contributions you can make as a capitalequipment manufacturer is to ensure that your products remain productive for as long as possible. That's certainly our policy at Stork Prints. We provide maintenance and spare parts for our printing machines for at least 20 years, and there are numerous examples from around the world of our RD4 and RD3HD machines, which are more than 35 years old and still going strong – and which still receive our ongoing support and service.
Conforming to Strict Legislation
With Europe renowned for its strict environmental legislation, we are subjected to stringent and regular checks. In the Netherlands, for example, our screen-production processes are regularly audited by various organisations such as the fire brigade, the regional environmental bureau and health & safety. Worldwide, we always make a point of conforming to the local regulations or our own internal standards, whichever is higher.
Ongoing Research to Further Reduce the Impact
We also carry out fundamental R&D in a number of areas. For instance, even though the levels of nickel and chrome in our screens are way below the permitted concentration levels, we are nonetheless investigating using alternatives so as to eliminate these potentially hazardous substances altogether. We are also working on concepts for stripping screens that don't require any chemicals. And, as well as seeking constant improvement in our own activities, we also encourage our customers to adopt more socially responsible manufacturing practices.
The Logical Choice
As you can see, we are active on many different fronts in our efforts to reduce the environmental footprint of textile manufacturing. Some of our initiatives – NovaScreens, direct-laser engraving – are unique, others are not. But when you add it all up, the conclusion is that Stork Prints is the logical choice as your partner for more sustainable textile printing
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