The Evolution of Eco-Friendly Printing
Environmentally-friendly printing solutions, or "Green" materials, have been available for quite a few years, but it's been in the last year that the options have really started to get interesting. Over the past 5 years, we've migrated our equipment to environmentally friendly inks such as latex and UV curable and done away with harmful solvents. But, when it comes to the printing materials themselves, there haven't always been good options. Some products have always been eco-friendly, such as giclee fine art prints made on canvas and cotton rag papers using water-based inks, or some wallpaper options that were made from paper or recycled materials. But, other options, such as vinyl banners, floor graphics and vehicle wraps didn't really have any good options that didn't include PVC.
PVC has earned a reputation as being a triple threat when it comes to our health and environment. The manufacturing process uses and produces many toxic chemicals, in use it can release harmful additives that are used in it's manufacturing, and it's disposal creates all kinds of problems from potential air pollution to to ground water contamination. Obviously this is not a material that should be used lightly, so wherever alternatives exist, we are committed to finding them and making available to our customers.
Eco-friendly options for banners have been around the longest, but substitutes for vinyl banner materials that look and perform the same have been very hard to come by. Initially, options like Tyvek and polypropylene were readily available, but did not perform the same and were also more expensive than vinyl. More recently, products like HDPE has become available, and while the prices are much better, these products don't look and feel like traditional vinyl banners, which makes them less popular with many customers. Obviously, when compared with the hazards of vinyl, these options should be considered when ever possible, but when for those who need the traditional performance of vinyl banners, our Bioflex banner is the closest thing to a eco-friendly vinyl banner solution. While it still contains PVC, it's specially made to biodegrade in landfills, which is something other vinyl materials don't do, so at least it helps in that regard.
When it comes to floor decals, our new EcoFloor is an exciting option. It has all the performance of our popular Repositionable Floor Decal but contains no PVC. This material is made from polyolefin, as is the protective, slip-resistant laminate, so it has all the performance of the vinyl version, at the same price, but with none of the environmentally harmful components.
Our Street Graphic and Asphalt Art products for outdoor street, sidewalk and parking lot graphics have been available for quite some time, and are eco-friendly, but they were made that way for performance reasons as opposed to being made as vinyl replacement. The Street Graphic is a special material that fractures into the texture of the surface it's applied to so that it looks painted on. This is something that vinyl cannot do. The Asphalt Art is a foil based material with a glass bead surface. It's a different approach to the same idea where it conforms to the texture of the street or sidewalk to look painted on, but since it doesn't fracture, it's much easier to remove, but both are excellent options for outdoor sidewalk and parking lot decals that won't harm the environment.
Another new material is a vehicle wrap film from 3M. Called Envision, it's the first high performance wrap film and laminate that is not made of cast vinyl, so it contains no PVC. The interesting thing about this product is that it actually out performs the vinyl versions of 3Ms vehicle wrap products, yet it costs the same. That's an exciting trend that we hope to see continue.
In the past, typical green options were more expensive and often required some performance sacrifices as well, so this new wave of materials that have the environmental benefits without the sacrifice is a welcome development. We've decided that wherever these new products, like the 3M Envision film, perform the same or better and cost the same as their vinyl counterparts, we're going to only offer the eco-friendly options. In the past, we would offer both so the customer could decide which they prefer, but in these cases, there is no advantage to the PVC version, so we're not even going to offer them so that customer's don't order them simply due to a lack of knowledge.
Hopefully, we'll have the opportunity to remove even more materials that contain components that are harmful to the environment over time, and we are doing our part to encourage manufacturers to offer these solutions.
Our Street Graphic and Asphalt Art products for outdoor street, sidewalk and parking lot graphics have been available for quite some time, and are eco-friendly, but they were made that way for performance reasons as opposed to being made as vinyl replacement. The Street Graphic is a special material that fractures into the texture of the surface it's applied to so that it looks painted on. This is something that vinyl cannot do. The Asphalt Art is a foil based material with a glass bead surface. It's a different approach to the same idea where it conforms to the texture of the street or sidewalk to look painted on, but since it doesn't fracture, it's much easier to remove, but both are excellent options for outdoor sidewalk and parking lot decals that won't harm the environment.
Another new material is a vehicle wrap film from 3M. Called Envision, it's the first high performance wrap film and laminate that is not made of cast vinyl, so it contains no PVC. The interesting thing about this product is that it actually out performs the vinyl versions of 3Ms vehicle wrap products, yet it costs the same. That's an exciting trend that we hope to see continue.
In the past, typical green options were more expensive and often required some performance sacrifices as well, so this new wave of materials that have the environmental benefits without the sacrifice is a welcome development. We've decided that wherever these new products, like the 3M Envision film, perform the same or better and cost the same as their vinyl counterparts, we're going to only offer the eco-friendly options. In the past, we would offer both so the customer could decide which they prefer, but in these cases, there is no advantage to the PVC version, so we're not even going to offer them so that customer's don't order them simply due to a lack of knowledge.
Hopefully, we'll have the opportunity to remove even more materials that contain components that are harmful to the environment over time, and we are doing our part to encourage manufacturers to offer these solutions.