Environmentally-friendly Printing InksA Case Study for Earthinks

1 March 2019

Widespread concern about sustainability and the environmental effect of manufacturing processes such as printing.
Traditional ‘water-based inks’ are actually based on chemicals or polymers derived from synthetic oil, making them fossil-based and subject to oil or polymer shortages in the future.
Alternative ‘natural’ inks usually only contain up to 5% renewable products.

Earthinks®, a new range of environmentally friendly, water-based flexographic and screen printing inks and coatings that offer up to a 100% replacement of synthetic chemicals with natural equivalents.
Earthinks® have been developed from sustainable and non-polluting resources including soy, starch, sugars, dextrin, tree resin, cellulose and other polysaccharides. Natural waxes are used to replace standard petroleum-based synthetics, and natural oils are used to defoam instead of mineral oils. Earthinks® are glycol and silicone-free, contain no heavy metals and have near-zero Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC).

Prices are comparable with standard inks but Earthinks® significantly reduce the impact on the environment.
Colour and quality are as good with Earthinks® – and in some cases better than synthetic and oil-derived inks. They have a low viscosity and low foaming levels to deliver sharp images with lower dot gain than standard inks.
Earthinks® offer stability over long runs due to their unique pH-independent technology.
In-house colour mixing is an option for special colour production on demand.
Ink recycling programme saves waste.
Earthinks® can be used on other substrates to enable brand owners to carry their environmental credentials across their entire range of packaging.

Weedon PSC was the UK’s first manufacturer of corrugated packaging to use predominantly natural printing inks.
Weedon PSC operates with a strong environmental policy.

Weedon Group plant based packaging and displays

Tel: 01543 423838 Email: contact@weedongroup.com

Creative Services