By Olivia Cahoon
Part 2 of 2
Many major brands and customers now require textiles constructed with recycled content. Print shops meet these demands by selecting eco-friendly textiles for digital printing. Green solutions provide a more sustainable product while also offering a level of print quality, ink compatibility, and reliability required by both print providers and end users.
Available Options
The Dickson Coatings’ Jet Up display fabric is used extensively in retail store displays and valued for its eco-friendly approach, certified curl free, and high-end textile appearance. The fabric is printable with latex, UV, eco-solvent, and solvent inks with widths up to 126 inches.
Jet Up does not contain any phthalates, formaldehyde, phosphate, or glycol. It is certified GREENGUARD Gold, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, A+, and Safety of Toys. According to Anthony Pappalardo, sales manager North America, Dickson Coatings, pricing is comparable to other display fabrics on the market.
Fisher Textiles offers the Enviro-Tex fabric line made with Repreve recycled yarns. Every style in the Enviro-Tex fabric line is partially or fully made from Repreve recycled yarns with applications such as apparel, awnings, banners, canopy tents, retail displays, and silicone edge graphics, says Sharon Roland, advertising and PR manager, Fisher Textiles.
Its most popular eco-friendly textile is ET 3000 Yoga, made with 84 percent Repreve polyester and 16 percent spandex for dye-sublimation (dye-sub) transfer printing. Available up to 60 inches wide, the material is used in both athleisure wear and athletic wear for jerseys, leggings, shorts, swimwear, and yoga pants. It features a UPF rating of 40-50+, which Roland believes provides excellent UV protection and block up to 98 percent UVA and UVB radiation. The fabric also has a moisture management system that wicks away perspiration, controls odor, and promotes comfort. One linear yard of ET 3000 Yoga contains 21 500 mL PET water bottles.
Enviro-Tex fabrics are certified by a third party through the U-Trust verification program using Fiberprint technology.
The Heytex Ecotex B1 is a PVC-free matte white printable front lit banner for outdoor use. It handles high wind due to its high-tear resistance and form stability. The material is free of plasticizers and phthalates as well as isocyanate-containing brominated compounds.
It is designed for easy processing and reduces waste disposal after use. It features a six-month lifespan and is also DIN 4102 B1 rated to fulfill building authority requirements. Available in 98-, 126-, and 197-inch roll widths, Ecotex B1 is compatible with UV and latex ink technologies.
According to Fabian Kampsen, market manager graphics, Heytex, pricing starts at 2.3 euros per square meter.
On Earth Day, Top Value Fabrics launched the Deko-Green sustainable digital textile. It is constructed entirely from filament yarns produced from recycled plastic bottles. Deko-Green provides print quality utilizing direct disperse, dye-sub transfer, latex, and UV inks and is REACH compliant as well as OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified. It is available in widths up to 122 inches.
During the product launch, Top Value Fabrics worked in collaboration with and utilized artwork from artist, activist, and photographer Benjamin Von Wong. His artwork was composed of 10,000 discarded water bottles with a live mermaid model to capture the audience’s attention, illustrating the amount of plastic waste that enters the environment.
Demands Drive Growth
Concern for the environment and the public’s health drive demand for eco-friendly textiles. In response, media manufacturers improve textile selections by offering substrates made with recycled yarns.
Click here to read part one of this exclusive online series, Environmentally Aware.
Sep2019, Digital Output
