About Sustainability Practices at Pacific NoRTH PRESS:
Wind Power
We opt for a full wind power offset, while sadly we don’t run our own turbines, we replace our power usage 100% with wind credits.
Plastics
We don’t do this, and neither should you. This is a pretty bad habit of the apparel industry that solely leads to more material for the landfill.
There are better, compostable options to poly bags we are happy to discuss with you.
Here’s a great article about polybags in the fashion industry –
https://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/9005/sustainability-101-the-problems-of-packaging
Here’s a great article about polybags in the fashion industry –
https://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/9005/sustainability-101-the-problems-of-packaging
Inks
We have also opted to stop using water-based inks in favor of plastisol. Plastisol is a PVC based ink that uses the same pigments as water-based inks.
However, while water-based sounds more green than plastic, the hidden problems include significantly higher ink waste (when the water evaporates, the ink dries up and is unusable.
It's even worse when we’ve activated the ink with Zinc Formaldehyde Sulfoxylate to make the ink discharge
Check out this article -- https://inkkitchen.com/dont-poison-yourself-and-your-workers/
This enters the water supply along with the heavy metals in the pigments, and gives the ink a 6 hour usable life). Not using water-based inks allows us to mitigate a very large amount of ink waste that would otherwise end up in the waterways.
If a print shop says their clean-up chemical is just water, don’t buy it, rinsing heavy metals down the drain is not eco-friendly!
However, while water-based sounds more green than plastic, the hidden problems include significantly higher ink waste (when the water evaporates, the ink dries up and is unusable.
It's even worse when we’ve activated the ink with Zinc Formaldehyde Sulfoxylate to make the ink discharge
Check out this article -- https://inkkitchen.com/dont-poison-yourself-and-your-workers/
This enters the water supply along with the heavy metals in the pigments, and gives the ink a 6 hour usable life). Not using water-based inks allows us to mitigate a very large amount of ink waste that would otherwise end up in the waterways.
If a print shop says their clean-up chemical is just water, don’t buy it, rinsing heavy metals down the drain is not eco-friendly!
Chemical Clean-up
We use double filtration and chemical recycling.
We operate a closed circuit screen cleaning unit that is double filtered to 70 micron to reclaim our screens, allowing us to reuse chemicals far beyond a typical usage and contain them when used up to recycle with our hazardous waste recycling.
These chemicals are also soy and citric acid derived, and not the solvent-based or petrochemicals once common to the industry.
We operate a closed circuit screen cleaning unit that is double filtered to 70 micron to reclaim our screens, allowing us to reuse chemicals far beyond a typical usage and contain them when used up to recycle with our hazardous waste recycling.
These chemicals are also soy and citric acid derived, and not the solvent-based or petrochemicals once common to the industry.
Vinyl
We stopped using vinyl.
The dirty secret about vinyl is that there will always be more waste than product.
Generally there is 50-95% waste in any vinyl project, whether its a sticker or vinyl window installation.
We did produce vinyl for several years but ultimately could not cope with the extreme amount of forever waste. We're actively seeking a better alternative.
The dirty secret about vinyl is that there will always be more waste than product.
Generally there is 50-95% waste in any vinyl project, whether its a sticker or vinyl window installation.
We did produce vinyl for several years but ultimately could not cope with the extreme amount of forever waste. We're actively seeking a better alternative.
The Cotton Cycle
Here’s a great series documenting the life cycle of a shirt, from the cotton farm to the wearer.
This series is a wonderful first hand account of producing a t-shirt and then looking backwards on the process all the way to the cotton farm. There are some great questions within that ask us to look at how far our personal impact really extends. This is why Pacific North Press want’s to make your work more meaningful.
This series is a wonderful first hand account of producing a t-shirt and then looking backwards on the process all the way to the cotton farm. There are some great questions within that ask us to look at how far our personal impact really extends. This is why Pacific North Press want’s to make your work more meaningful.
