Now more than ever before people everywhere seem to have a greater awareness pertaining to what is going on in our environment.

Every one seems to have jumped on the going green band wagon in almost every industry and the custom embroidery and custom screen printing sector is no different.

I have been applying screen printing to T-shirts as well as embroidery for polos for well over 15 years now.

I have seen a lot of changes.

For example, I remember back when I first got into this business and I walked into someone’s shop in order to see if they had any equipment for sale.

My first thought was “Man, it stinks in here.How can these guys work like this?”
I was only in the shop for less than 20 min. and I was already starting to feel high and light headed.

The overwhelming odor was from very strong solvents that were used for cleaning the ink out of the screens as well as off the technician’s hands.

I could not help but think to myself, after years of standing behind a press and breathing this in, that these guys would be affected.

How can these guys not have brain damage is beyond me ?
These days, when you walk into a state-of-the-art screen printing and embroidery facility, it is more likely to smell like a grapefruit or orange orchard than anything else.

Those dangerous overwhelming smells have been replaced with citrus-based agents.

They not only won’t give you brain damage or expose you to harmful carcinogens that were not only ingested through breathing but also absorbed through your skin, they actually smell quite pleasant.

Okay, so it was unhealthy for the person working at the screen printing shop, but what does that have to do with me?

The truth is that it affected all of Kansas City because every bit of that solvent went right down the drain or into a Kansas City landfill or source system.

I personally never considered myself to be a tree hugging fanatic but I am certainly in favor of a safe work environment as well astrying to do my part in being responsible for the waste that comes out of my shop.