Like a sap that flows through the refills of analog pens and the nozzles of digital printers, ink is the consumable material par excellence. As such it constitutes a major test-bed for the double challenge of innovation and respect for the environment.

A challenge taken up by Mimaki, which produces in-house its own pigment, dye- sublimation, Dtf and UV inks, obviously with an eye on eco-sustainability. So much so that it has also developed the Neo-Chromate process to remove inks, which allows to completely bleach dye-sublimation printed polyester fabrics, thus making them ready for reprinting up to 20 times. A solution that facilitates the reuse of a very wide range of items, from garments to flags, banners and soft signage graphics.

With respect to the theme of circular economy, also worthy of reflection is the approach developed by Pavlin, a company from Ljubljana (distributed by compatriot Partner Aktiv), which in Slovenia and Croatia has implemented a system to rebuild or rather reassemble exhausted toner cartridges, significantly delaying the end-of-life of these components. Similarly, for what concerns inkjet printing, thanks to the Maxprint24 service, Pavlin managed to set up a rental system of converted multifunctional printers using the Cis system, which allows to incorporate an ink tank capable of coping with very long colour printing queues, thus producing a significant cost reduction. The quality of materials and the services are certified Iso 9001, Iso 14001 and Ohsas 45001.

Besides being an important factor for the goodwill of companies, today's inks are subject to more stringent constraints from national and international authorities compared to the past.  To cite an example that concerns us most closely, on a yearly basis the European Chemicals Agency (Echa) draws up and updates the list of Substances of Very High Concern (Svhc), which all operators and in particular those in the food sector must follow to the letter.

This prompted Unicup, a Polish food container labelling company, to choose Memjet technology inks for a big part of its orders, which are not only fast-drying, but also water-based and certified as free of harmful components such as lead, mercury, or cadmium. Recent policies on the use of lead have also prompted manufacturers of writing instruments, such as the Swiss Pagani Pens Group, not only to update their Floating Ball refill line to the 'lead-free' version and with Svhc-compliant inks, but also to ban the solvent violet 8, the use of which will be tolerated by regulations until mid-2024. Pagani also has a line of gel refills (also lead-free), filled with water-based ink conforming to ISO 27668-1. However, the gel finds less favour in Europe than in other latitudes.