Impressions - February 2017 - 26

Recirculate It

Buying in Bulk

Another way to make your shop more sustainable is to use a recirculation tank, which uses a cleaning brush that sprays screen
wash through it, minimizing the amount released into the air.
The used ink cleaner is washed down the sink drain,where it is
funneled into a stainless-steel holding tank. Here, it is filtered, leaving sludge at the bottom and reusable cleaning fluid on
top. It allows for the same cleaning fluid to be used for months,
saving a significant amount of money on cleaning chemicals that
normally would go down the drain.
Brett Bowden, president, Printed Threads, Keller, Texas, uses
one of these in his shop. "We pump out all of the old chemicals
and store those in a drum," he says. "We let it sit and the sediment settles to the bottom. On top is useable product. By using
a hand sump pump, we siphon it off and reuse it."

ply toss it in the trash. And even if packaging
is recyclable, not every shop's local facilities
can handle such waste.
A safer alternative is to use a comparable
product that is dispensed as a liquid from a
smaller container, such as a plunger can or
a ketchup bottle.
"Instead of using screen opener that has to
be sprayed on, we use a plunger can," Bowden
says. "You fill it with the chemical, and it has
a plate on top. You place your cleaning rag on
top of the plate and press down. It dispenses fluid onto the cloth while draining excess
back down into the can. You can then use it
to wipe down your screens."

chemicals get released into the air. Another
plus is it cleans screens faster, so we get more
done in less time. It used to take one person a
full day to clean all of our screens. Now, they
are done before lunchtime. That employee can
now spend the second half of the day doing
something else, so there [are] labor savings."
Bowden only uses screen-cleaning chemicals
with no volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
"Not only are these chemicals safer for our
employees to use, but because they don't evaporate, they don't have to be replaced as often,"
he says. "We are able to use the same chemicals in our machine for three to four months
at a time. We just top them off occasionally."

A shop can be even greener by buying
products in larger quantities. Whether it
be quarts, gallons or even a drum, larger
quantities mean fewer containers left to be
recycled or end up in a landfill. It's easy to
understand how much greener a 55-gallon
drum is when you contrast it with disposing
of 55 individual 1-gallon containers.
Many times, you can resell a drum or
it can be used for another purpose, such
as a trash can. Some printers use them as
dirty-water or chemical-holding tanks.
While buying a drum may be challenging for smaller shops on a budget, you get
a better price for larger quantities, which
may justify the expense.
There are many more ways to improve a shop in terms of safety and ecofriendliness. These are just a few ideas to
help you get started. While being green
sometimes is perceived as more expensive
and less effective, that really is not true
anymore. Research the new products and
equipment available and experiment to see
which solutions work for you. 
Ryan Moor is the founder and CEO of Ryonet, a
business he started in 2004 after printing shirts in
his garage for his punk-rock band. Since that time,
Ryonet has grown to 120 team members who have
helped more than 100,000 screen-printing companies, from garage startups to award-winning ROQ
automatic shops. For more information or to comment
on this article, email Ryan at rmoor@ryonet.com
or visit screenprinting.com.

Closing the Loop
The more enclosed systems you can integrate
into your shop, the more environmentally
friendly it is. An example of a closed-loop system is an automatic screen-cleaning machine,
which directly accepts cleaning chemicals.
Dirty screens are loaded and the machine's
door is closed. No chemicals or fumes are
emitted while the screens are washed.
Bowden has found this to be a viable solution for his shop with perks other than employee safety. "Screen cleaning has long been
regarded as one of the most undesirable jobs
in a screen-printing shop," he says. "Having
someone stand in a washout booth spraying chemicals for eight hours a day - even
though they wear respirators and eye protection - is no fun.
"The beauty of having an automatic machine
is everything is self contained," he adds. "No

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i m p r e s s i o n s m a g . c o m FEBRUARY 2017

Employees should wear a
respirator mask and eye
protection when harmful
chemicals can't be
completely eliminated.

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Impressions - February 2017

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