Environmentally friendly inks

Going 'Green' is a very important factor in the world of ink production these days, and one of the companies striving to make it an integral part of everything they do is Inx Digital, the manufacturers of Triangle Inks.

This includes product and packaging design, the production process right through to the waste management of finished ink cartridges. Careful thought and consideration for the environmental impact goes into each aspect of the whole process.

How they impact the environment is also important and environmental considerations are an integral part of INX Digital's business practices.

From the earliest stages of product design through manufacturing and use, the company takes care to keep its activities and products environmentally sound. Four areas that are given particular attention are product and packaging design, responsible manufacturing and energy efficiency. Each aspect of the design cycle provides significant challenges, yet Inx Digital's efforts in these areas have resulted in some impressive results.

Reducing the environmental impact of products starts with the product design. Design dictates the quantity of raw materials, the type and recyclability of materials, methods for manufacturing and use and ease of disposing.

One key green product is Triangle Eco Bulk which represents a new type of ink delivery system. With a unique cardboard design it comprises of one box instead of five, 440 ml cartridges and the ink is housed within a foil bag. Once emptied, the bag is disposed of and replaced, making it a much more sustainable solution compared to plastic. The foil bag can contain up to two litres of ink, double the current industry standard of one litre packaging resulting in less waste. However, 440 ml cartridges do remain available for customers using less ink. A test program showed that more volume allows for greater consistency of the product being delivered through the network.

Triangle EDX is an eco solvent ink introduced to the market around 12 months ago. The introduction of these inks marked the first time INX Digital's Triangle brand offered a colour and chemically compatible ECO product for the alternative market. With dual compatibility, users can perform cartridgeby- cartridge changeover without wasting ink. New colour profiles are not required in order to obtain the same colour as OEM inks when printing. They are fast drying inks with low odour, and EDX has low HAPS formulation and provides significant cost savings when compared to OEM eco inks.

Nathan Ward, Director at Anglia Graphics comments: "I converted my Roland SP540i at the beginning of the year to Triangle EDX inks, and am pleased to say that they are running just as smoothly as the OEM ink. The ink performance has been perfect and after several cartridge changes due to the volume of work we are undertaking there has been no colour shift whatsoever. We've actually gone from EDX cartridges to an EDX bulk ink feed system recently and are now saving well over 50% on the OEM price. The Josero team is extremely knowledgeable and not only help with our inks but maintain our machines, and with a large number of spare parts in stock this makes any downtime very limited."

The switch

The progressive switch of PVC-based materials and solvent inks towards a green production environment caused high interest for these direct-to-textile inks. Designed for use on direct and transfer printing with synthetic fabrics with Epson print heads, they deliver optimal quality and a wide colour gamut whilst displaying fast drying characteristics on polyesters with minimum 60 percent blends. DTX also has optimal ink fluidity and excellent image definition and fastness properties.

"We are extremely proud to have three outstanding sustainable products in our catalogue," said Paolo Capano, Director of INX Digital Italy. "INX Digital has a multi-year plan in place to develop more sustainable and environmentally friendly products, and these three represent those efforts across the board. We believe the timing is perfect for the EDX inks, and the DTX textile inks are solid proof of our commitment to water-based technology."

For more information on Josero please visit www.josero.com or call 01954 232 564.