0. Can printing be eco-friendly?
In our print workshop we have experimented with many techniques, but they all start from the same reality: printing on fabric¹ has an environmental impact.
Our research stems from the will to reduce it as much as possible, while preserving the quality and artisanal precision that define us.
To do this, we analysed various garment-printing techniques, assessing their consumption, waste, and the handling of chemical residues. Among these, traditional screen printing proved to be the most critical, especially due to the amount of water required and the difficulty of properly disposing of the wastewater from screen cleaning; and industry studies, listed in the bibliography, are in agreement with this conclusion.
From here, a process of experimentation began: understanding which alternatives could offer the same aesthetic result and product durability, but with a more sustainable environmental impact.
Today, after three years of experimentation, we have arrived at the "Eco-Paper DTF" printing technique, a technology that allows us to maintain high quality standards and garment durability comparable to screen printing, while significantly reducing waste and environmental contamination.
Our goal is simple: not only to print on ecological materials — such as recycled cotton and fruit residues — but also to print in a more eco-sustainable way
I. The Problem with “Traditional” Screen Printing
We began our artisan journey as screen printers, using “traditional” screens for our prints. As mentioned above, even when carried out in strict compliance with current regulations (namely Legislative Decree 152/2006 – the Environmental Consolidated Act, which implements various EU directives, in particular Directive 2000/60/EC – the “Water Framework Directive”), the washing of screens is a particularly critical step.
In an attempt to understand whether there was a way to reduce our environmental impact, we explored various types of inks.
1.1 The Problem with Plastic-Based Inks
Plastic-based inks were the first ones we experimented with. They are the most commonly used in textile screen printing, widely appreciated both by large-scale manufacturers and local screen printers. These inks offer three production advantages: they do not dry unless exposed to high temperatures (meaning they won’t dry up during printing), the print is durable, and customers love it for its tactile feel.
However, these inks conceal extremely serious drawbacks
They contain vinyl resins (PVC), plasticisers, pigments, and chlorinated additives, and during the washing of screens, even water that has been filtered and correctly delivered to disposal centres still contains highly contaminating agents. These compounds form persistent emulsions that are not removed by standard filtration systems. Over time, the residues release toxic substances and heavy metals that accumulate in sediments and aquatic organisms. Even after treatment, the water retains an invisible yet active fraction of pollutants, making the wastewater hazardous for the aquatic environment.
1.2 An Insufficient Solution: Water-Based Inks
It became necessary for us to experiment with less polluting screen-printing inks, even if they were more difficult to handle. We therefore moved on to water-based textile inks.
… And we discovered that they, too, conceal hidden pitfalls
Although far less polluting, this type of ink dries very quickly — which requires more frequent washing of the screens.
Moreover, although solvent-free, water-based screen-printing inks for washable fabrics are not harmless once diluted in cleaning water. The acrylic or polyurethane polymer dispersions they contain release plastic micro-residues and persistent compounds that are not removed by conventional filtration systems. Even the synthetic pigments, often containing metals or azo bonds, bind to sludge and continue releasing toxic substances over time. The “treated” water therefore still retains an invisible share of contaminants.
II. Disposable Screens
Since we had identified the cleaning of inked screens as the main environmental issue, we considered a solution involving disposable screens, so as to avoid washing them and bypass the problem altogether.
2.1 Screen Frame Engraving
We therefore chose to create screen-printing frames with a dedicated laser engraver for each printing session, instead of using the exposure unit², pairing them with the least polluting water-based inks available. The limitation of this technique is that, accustomed as we were to the near-endless durability of traditional screens, we overestimated its real potential. Nothing to fault the engravers for — they allowed us to grow in skill and deepen our understanding of the craft — however, the approach would have been worthwhile only if the amount of “wasted” ink ending up in the bin along with the spent frames, rather than in the water, had been significantly lower than what we were actually able to achieve.
It was still worth trying — exploring every facet of screen printing to the very end — before finally saying goodbye to it
III. Other, Less Polluting Printing Techniques
So we asked ourselves whether screen printing was truly the only path for us. After all, we had already learned that a method isn’t necessarily the right one just because everyone else follows it.
3.1 “Block Printing”
Our first truly unfamiliar experiment was block printing. This is an ancient technique in which a design is carved into a block of wood, rubber, or linoleum, turning it into a matrix capable of producing endless artisanal prints. Once carved, the block is inked and pressed onto fabric or paper, creating images with a unique, imperfect, and vibrant character. This technique combines manual skill, rhythm, and attention to detail, giving rise to prints that carry the beauty of the artistic gesture repeated by hand.
From an environmental standpoint, it was a turning point: block printing performed with water-based inks is — in our view — something very close to perfection. It carries with it the combined advantages of all the screen-printing “variants” we had tested so far.
- It allows the use of water-based inks because—even if they dry—nothing problematic happens, which was the main advantage of the disposable screens;
- It allows the same block to be reused endlessly, because it is virtually indestructible.
However, we encountered three main problems:
1. Being an extremely “raw” and not very precise artistic printing technique, it is suitable only for specific types of prints.
2. It was extremely difficult to create designs with more than one colour.
3. The process is at least three times slower than screen printing.
To this was added a new problem specific to us: we were halfway through creating an exclusive collection, and that collection had artistic features incompatible with block printing. We therefore had to choose whether to start over and rethink our artistic framework in terms of style and output, or to continue our journey in search of new printing techniques.
We are happy to have experimented with and learned this technique — which we have kept for certain designs — but our future lies elsewhere
3.2 “DTG” Printing
So we asked ourselves whether the future of the modern small artisan is exclusively analogue. And we cast a cautious glance at the digital side of the coin.
DTG allows ink to be applied directly onto the fabric, functioning like a modified inkjet printer, enabling detailed and richly coloured prints without the need for screens or plates.
Initially hesitant, we discovered an interesting reality: zero waste, zero substrates. Of course, the trade-off was purchasing a machine completely beyond our budget, along with sleepless nights spent learning to understand it like a specialised technician.
It goes without saying that the advantages of this technique — for anyone whose goal is to avoid polluting water with ink — are endless, given that it doesn’t come into contact with water in the slightest. However, even in this case we encountered some issues:
- Purchasing one of these machines brand new was beyond our means, so we opted for something old and second-hand. Since this technology is constantly evolving, the difference in efficiency between what we could achieve with ours and what can be done today with a new machine is enormous. As a result, we ended up with a tool even slower than block printing — and one that jammed constantly.
- Besides being unsustainably slow, it is also probably the most expensive printing technique in existence.
- Lastly, on a purely personal note, direct-to-garment printing — carried out entirely by a machine — took away the magic of creation for us.
Beautiful, clean, completely and almost magically eco-sustainable — but also extremely slow, expensive, and therefore beyond our reach
3.3 “DTF” Printing
By then we had already set one foot into the digital world, so it was worth continuing the journey by setting the other as well and discovering what DTF had to offer us.
The DTF printer makes it possible to print on a special film using water-based inks; once printed, the designs can be heat-transferred onto the fabric.
Aside from the initial challenge of understanding how it worked and how to maintain it — a difficulty comparable to DTG — its advantages were the same: no ink discharged into water, overall process cleanliness, and zero dispersed pollutants. It also had the following advantages over DTG:
- It is less expensive,
- It is less slow, although it will never be as fast or efficient as single-colour screen printing,
- It unleashes the artisan’s creativity, for two reasons:
- The creation of the transfers is not something the machine handles autonomously: there are countless possibilities for variation, even from one printing session to another — as well as from one design to the next. For example, if you raise the oven temperature, the ink coagulates in one way rather than another; if the colour is mixed only lightly and contains less pigment, the print will display artistically spectacular streaks.
- Once the transfers are created, the product is not finished: it moves on to the manual heat-pressing stage. And here too, every choice, every variation of what is known in the jargon as “double-pressing” determines a result — intentional or not — that follows the creative flow.
It all sounds wonderful, but there is one enormous problem: every print requires a sheet of plastic which, although recyclable, runs completely counter to what we are trying to achieve.
…If only we could print DTF on recyclable paper
IV. Where We Arrived: Eco-Paper DTF
The title speaks for itself: combining the advantages of DTF printing with maximum sustainability, thanks to a fully recyclable paper substrate, is the point we have reached so far in our journey as eco-artisans.
It was not an easy milestone to reach: until last year, there were no manufacturers producing paper rolls compatible with DTF printing, and even today it remains a pioneering and rare material, available only to those willing to search high and low for it.
We are therefore doubly satisfied that our — for now — end point, “Eco-Paper DTF”, offers a quality equal to, and in some respects even superior to, our starting point, “Plastisol Screen Printing”, while at the same time surpassing it in terms of environmental sustainability, bringing us closer to our greatest goal.
Not an end point, but a new beginning
V. The Future: Research into More Sustainable Inks
And now? What else can we do to improve even further?
Now that the printing process has reached a good level of eco-sustainability — since it generates neither waste nor pollutants — our goal is to make the finished product truly recyclable.
As you may have noticed, our bags, notebooks, pouches, and sweatshirts are already made from recycled materials, or contain a percentage of them; however, the print itself makes it more difficult to ensure that they can be transformed into something else once their life cycle has ended.
For this reason, our efforts are now focused on studying methods that will allow us to create Eco-Paper DTF prints that do not hinder the return of our products into the recycling cycle.
To achieve this, we will need to delve into two areas of chemistry:
- That of inks and pigments, in search of a combination that maintains maximum performance without compromising the possibility, tomorrow, of giving new life to the materials through recycling.
- That of the materials responsible for ensuring the ink adheres to the fabric.
Thank you immensely for accompanying us on this journey with your support
Footnotes
1. Predominantly synthetic fabrics are not part of our research path, as we prefer — for environmental reasons — to focus on natural, recycled, or recyclable fabrics and substrates.
It is worth mentioning that fabrics with a polyester percentage above 50% can be printed using the sublimation technique. This is one of the lowest-impact printing methods, as — aside from sublimation paper, for which recyclable versions exist on the market — it uses neither water nor solvents and therefore generates very little production waste.
Gnostic Tower’s quest is to achieve an equally ecological printing method, but on non-synthetic fabrics and substrates, or on materials that contain only a minimal amount of plastic fibres. In our products, we prefer to use natural textiles — such as 100% cotton for t-shirts, blends with a majority percentage of organic or recycled cotton and small amounts of recycled polyester for sweatshirts, or organic recycled materials like fruit-based food residues mixed with paper for our notebooks. None of these materials are compatible with sublimation.
2. The exposure unit is a device that allows a photosensitive emulsion to be etched onto a screen-printing frame using UV light, transforming a printed sheet into a matrix ready for printing. Inside its light chamber, it polymerises the emulsion everywhere it is not covered by the film positive, thus creating the open areas through which the ink will pass.
Bibliography
Scientific Bibliography
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Repubblica Italiana. (1999). Decreto Legislativo 11 maggio 1999, n. 152 – Disposizioni sulla tutela delle acque dall’inquinamento e recepimento della Direttiva 91/271/CEE. Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana, n. 124.
Roth, J., Zerger, B., De Geeter, D., Gómez Benavides, J. and Roudier, S. (2023) Best available techniques (BAT) reference document for the Textiles Industry, Publications Office of the European Union.