DT TN
8 April 2025 Insight

How will ESPR affect printing inks?

By Otis Robinson

Digital textile printing inks have long been considered a sustainable alternative to traditional screen-printing and dyeing methods.

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Water-based pigment inks, for example, are arguably the most eco-friendly option because they contain fewer harmful chemicals, reducing the need for post-washing.

Nevertheless, challenges persist: these chemistries are not one-hundred-percent green. Printing products such as binders, fixatives and certain synthetic pigments remain, in some cases, toxic to human health and the environment – but regulatory pressures exist to push for the development of safer formulations.

The European Commission’s (EC’s) Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), for example, entered into force on 18 July 2024, targets the unsustainability and safety of products by encouraging innovation in design. The EC says the ESPR is the cornerstone of its approach towards the creation of more environmentally sustainable and circular products: importantly, it is part of a package of measures that are essential to helping the European Union (EU) to reach its environmental and climate goals by 2030, and aims to improve the sustainability of products placed on the EU market.

But how will this affect digital textile printing ink technologists, suppliers and print service providers (PSPs)? The regulation will ultimately enforce stricter sustainability, transparency and chemical safety 

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