Project #1
Move away from using methylene chloride
05/29/2003
T-shirts, cloth
Small
Less than 1 lb
Printing
Packaging
12
Methylene Chloride, Albatross USA SPIF 2
Secret ingredient may be methylene chloride
Remove ink spots and dirt
No relation
Used Immediately
We switched from same vendor/product that had methylene chloride. Striving to use product where respirators are not required by OSHA
Initially, only one of the products tested removed over 80% of the ink using immersion cleaning alone. However, several of the products allowed for the ink to be easily wiped off after soaking for five minutes.
These successful cleaners were evaluated on the second supplied ink. Bio T Max and D-Limonene removed over 80% of the blue ink using immersion cleaning only. The other four products had vast improvement when wiped three times with a paper towel. Of the four, only one did not remove over 90% of the ink. A third trial revealed that the three semi-aqueous products (Bio Chem Systems Bio T Max, Florida Chemical Company D-Limonene and Vertec BioSolvents Ink Zapper) had some success, removing most of the ink from the cloth. All cleaners resulted in smearing the ink across the cloth.